THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

SOME  AMERICAN 
STORY    TELLERS 

A  critical  analysis  of  the  work 

of  Marion  Crawford,  Robert  Her- 

rick,  Ellen  Glasgow,  Robert  W. 

Chambers,     Gertrude    Atherton, 

Winston  Churchill,  Kate  Douglas 

Wiggin,  David  Graham  Phillips, 

Frank  Norris/'O.  Henry,"  Owen 

Wister,  Booth  Tarkington,  Edith 

Wharton,    and   Ambrose  Bierce. 

"An  invaluable  source  of  information." 
—  The  Dial. 

With  portraits,  $1.60  net 
HENRY    HOLT   AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW   YORK 


JOSEPH  CONRAD 


SOME    ENGLISH 
STORY  TELLERS 

A  BOOK  OF  THE  YOUNGER   NOVELISTS 


BY 
FREDERIC  TABER  COOPER 


WITH    PORTRAITS 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY   HOLT   AND   COMPANY 

19 1 2 


Copyright,  19 12, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  November,  1912 


PREFACE 

As  in  the  case  of  Some  American  Story  Tellers, 
the  title  of  the  present  volume  has  been  deliberately 
chosen,  in  order  to  place  the  various  types  of 
modern  writers  of  fiction  more  or  less  on  a  level, 
as  primarily  public  entertainers,  whose  first  duty 
is  to  hold  public  attention  with  the  spell  of  the 
spoken  word.  There  is  no  intention  to  minimize, 
by  the  use  of  this  title,  the  high  function  that 
fiction  is  tending  more  and  more  to  play  as  a 
criticism  of  contemporary  manners  and  ethics ; 
but  it  does  permit  of  a  more  indulgent  attitude 
towards  such  writers  as  take  their  responsibilities 
more  lightly,  and  to  recognize  that,  within  its 
class  and  in  view  of  its  author's  purpose,  Anthony 
Hope's  Dolly  Dialogues  is  as  finished  a  piece  of 
story-telling  as  Arnold  Bennett's  Old  Wives'  Tale. 

Furthermore,  this  volume  does  not  pretend  to 
have  made  a  definitive  choice  of  the  fifteen  novelists 
of  the  day  who  are  best  deserving  of  critical  recog- 
nition. It  is  necessarily  to  some  extent  a  matter 
of  personal  preference ;  and,  since  the  limits  of 
space  prevent  the  inclusion  of  all  the  present-day 
writers  about  whom  the  author  has  views  that 
he  would  gladly  express,  the  consequence  is  that 

v 


vi  PREFACE 

several  of  the  younger  novelists  who  well  deserve 
a  place  in  these  pages  have  been  crowded  out, — 
notably,  Mr.  Leonard  Merrick,  Mr.  J.  C.  Snaith 
and  Mr.  W.  B.  Maxwell, — in  order  to  make  room 
for  older  writers,  such  as  Rudyard  Kipling  and 
Anthony  Hope,  whose  recognized  importance  as 
story  tellers  makes  their  inclusion  a  matter  to  be 
taken  for  granted.  For  the  most  part,  however, 
the  intention  has  been  to  give  preference  to  those 
novelists  about  whom  comparatively  little  has  yet 
been  written,  in  the  way  of  definitely  placing 
them, — writers  who  are  of  interest  quite  as  much 
for  their  promise  as  for  their  fulfilment,  and 
whose  best  work,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  still 
lies  in  the  future.  And  that  is  the  reason  why 
many  story  tellers  of  the  recognized  worth  of  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle, — to  mention  only  one  of 
many  names, — have  been  with  some  reluctance 
omitted. 

Most  of  the  essays  in  this  volume  have  ap- 
peared, either  in  whole  or  in  part,  in  the  New 
York  Bookman;  portions  of  the  articles  on  Alfred 
Ollivant,  "  Frank  Danby  "  and  W.  J.  Locke  were 
published  in  the  Forum;  those  on  John  Galswor- 
thy and  John  Trevena  have  been  expanded  from 
short  papers  contributed  to  the  Book  News 
Monthly;  and  certain  paragraphs  of  that  on  Rud- 
yard Kipling  are  modified  extracts  from  reviews 
of  The  Five  Nations  and  Traffics  and  Discoveries, 


PREFACE  vii 

published  respectively  in  the  issues  of  November, 

1903  and  1904,  of  the  World's  Work.    And  to  the 

editors    of   these    several  periodicals,    the    author 

wishes   herewith  to   express   his   appreciation   for 

their   courtesy    in    permitting   him    to    reproduce 

the  aforesaid  articles. 

Frederic  Taber  Cooper. 
New  York  City, 
October  29,  1912. 


CONTENTS 


I. 

Joseph  Conrad 

1 

II. 

William  Frend  De  Morgan  . 

31 

III. 

Maurice  Hewlett  . 

54 

IV. 

Eden  Phillpotts     . 

94 

V. 

Rudyard  Kipling     . 

.      122 

VI. 

William  John  Locke 

'   .      148 

VII. 

John  Galsworthy  . 

.     177 

VIII. 

Arnold  Bennett 

.     206 

IX. 

Anthony  Hope 

.     232 

X. 

May  Sinclair 

.      252 

XI. 

Alfred  Ollivant 

.      280 

XII. 

Mrs.  Henry  Dudeney     . 

.     297 

XIII. 

John  Trevena 

.      324 

XIV. 

Robert  Hichens 

.      342 

XV. 

"  Frank  Danby  " 

.     376 

Bibliography         .... 

.     417 

Index 

•                 •                 •                 •                 •                 • 

.     457 

PORTRAITS 


Joseph  Conrad 

William  Frend  De  Morgan 
Maurice  Hewlett 
Eden  Phillpotts 
Rudyard  Kipling 
William  John  Locke 
John  Galsworthy 
Arnold  Bennett 
Anthony  Hope 
May  Sinclair 
Alfred  Ollivant 
Mrs.  Henry  Dudeney 
John  Trevena 
Robert  Hichens   . 
"  Frank  Danby  " 


Frontispiece 

PAGE 

31 
54 
94 
.  122 
.  148 
.  177 
.  206 
.  232 
.  252 
.  280 
.  297 
.  324 
.  342 
.  376 


JOSEPH  CONRAD 

With  the  possible  exception  of  Mr.  Henry 
James,  there  is  no  living  writer  of  fiction  in  Eng- 
lish whom  it  behooves  the  critic  to  approach  with 
more  modesty  and  self-mistrust  than  Joseph  Con- 
rad. There  is  no  other  writer  of  similar  magni- 
tude whose  treatment  in  the  past  has  been  so  inade- 
quate, so  prejudiced,  so  blindly  narrow  and  one- 
sided. From  the  time  when  one  of  his  earliest 
book  notices  bore  the  caption,  "  A  Puzzle  for  Re- 
viewers," his  detractors  have  never  become  tired 
of  insisting  that  he  knows  neither  how  to  write 
correct  English  nor  how  to  construct  a  story; 
and  his  admirers  have  expended  their  energies  in 
explaining  and  apologizing  for  him — whereas,  in 
reality,  he  needs  neither  apology  nor  explanation, 
but  merely  a  far  heartier  recognition  than  he  has 
yet  received.  The  attitude  of  criticism  toward 
him  has  not  seriously  troubled  Mr.  Conrad.  As 
he  himself  writes,  in  A  Personal  Record — a  unique 
human  document,  from  which  it  will  be  profitable 
to  draw  freely  in  this  article — "  fifteen  years  of 
unbroken  silence  before  praise  or  blame  testify 
sufficiently  to  my  respect  for  criticism,  that  fine 


2  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

flower  of  personal  expression  in  the  garden  of  let- 
ters." But,  though  the  author  himself  can  afford 
to  be  tolerant  of  miscomprehension  and  under- 
valuation, the  serious  student  of  modern  tendencies 
in  fiction  cannot  afford  to  overlook  the  fact  that 
Conrad  is  one  of  the  very  few  who  have  added 
something  absolutely  new  to  the  art  and  the  tech- 
nique of  his  vocation. 

It  is  worth  while  before  passing  on  to  examine 
more  specifically  the  qualities  of  Conrad's  fiction, 
to  take  up  for  a  moment  a  couple  of  special 
articles  of  comparatively  recent  date,  that  of  Mr. 
John  A.  Macy  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  of 
John  Galsworthy  in  the  Contemporary  Review. 
These  articles  are  singled  out  from  a  number  of 
others  because,  while  fairly  representative  in  tone, 
they  were  put  forth  with  the  semblance  of  special 
authority  and  finality.  Mr.  Macy,  while  question- 
ing the  greatness  of  modern  writers  in  general, 
somewhat  dubiously  suggests  Mr.  Conrad  as  the 
one  possible  claimant.  He  extols  Mr.  Conrad's 
lofty  ideals,  and  then,  on  the  ground  that  a 
writer  of  such  high  standards  must  be  judged 
with  exceptional  rigidity,  proceeds  to  devote  a 
large  part  of  his  article  to  picking  flaws  in  the 
construction  of  his  author's  several  stories,  as 
measured  by  the  pocket  rule  of  cut-and-dried 
technique.  The  sum  and  substance  of  what  he 
has  to  say  is  to  blame  Conrad  for  not  having 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  3 

done  as  other  and  lesser  writers  were  contented 
to  do  before  him — instead  of  seeking  to  discover 
how  and  why  he  has  succeeded  in  being  splendidly 
and  triumphantly  himself. 

Mr.  Galsworthy's  article  deserves  a  brief  word 
for  quite  a  different  reason.  Here  we  have  a 
cordial  appreciation  by  a  fellow-craftsman  who 
already  occupies  as  dignified  a  position  in  his  own 
generation  as  Mr.  Conrad  does  in  his.  That  Mr. 
Galsworthy's  critical  acumen  is  distinctly  in- 
ferior to  his  creative  power  becomes  apparent 
long  before  we  reach  the  following  paragraph,  so 
extravagant  that  it  largely  discounts  its  own 
value : 

The  writing  of  these  (Conrad's)  ten  books  is  prob- 
ably the  only  writing  of  the  last  twelve  years  that 
will  enrich  the  English  language  to  any  extent. 

The  technical  side  of  Joseph  Conrad's  work 
does  not  especially  interest  Mr.  Galsworthy.  He 
is  concerned  mainly  with  an  attempt  to  sum  up 
the  essential  spirit  of  Conrad  in  some  epigram- 
matic, easily  portable  form,  to  find  some  catch- 
phrase  that  sounds  like  an  explanation,  and 
that  really  is  as  futile  as  an  attempt  to  reduce 
a  myriad-sided  solid  to  a  plane  surface.  The 
Universe,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Galsworthy,  "  is 
always  saying:  The  little  part  called  man  is  al- 
ways smaller  than  the  whole !  " — and  the  writer 


4  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

who  recognizes  the  truth  of  this  possesses,  so  he 
tells  us,  the  cosmic  spirit.  Consequently,  Mr. 
Conrad's  claim  to  recognition  rests  upon  the  fact 
that  he  is  unique  among  novelists  in  possessing 
this  spirit: 

In  the  novels  of  Balzac  and  Charles  Dickens  there 
is  the  feeling  of  environment,  of  the  growth  of  men 
from  men.  In  the  novels  of  Turgenev  the  characters 
are  bathed  in  light;  nature  in  her  many  moods  is  all 
around,  but  man  is  first.  In  the  novels  of  Joseph 
Conrad  nature  is  first,  man  is  second. 

Now,  if  this  were  literally  true,  if  Mr.  Conrad 
really  believed  that  a  rainbow  or  a  water-spout 
was  of  more  importance  to  mankind  than  man 
himself:  then,  instead  of  proving  his  claim  to 
greatness  by  pointing  out  this  fact,  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy would  simply  have  knocked  the  idol  from 
his  pedestal  and  proved  him  to  be  stuffed  with 
straw.  It  is  all  very  well  to  have  enough  of  the 
cosmic  spirit  to  recognize  that  in  the  ultimate 
scheme  of  things  the  part  is  always  smaller  than 
the  whole,  and  that,  as  a  rudimentary  principle  of 
physics,  a  mountain  contains  more  molecules  than 
a  man.  But  Mr.  Conrad  is  not  writing  for  an 
audience  of  mountains,  but  for  his  fellow-men — 
and  no  really  good  work  can  be  done  by  any  liv- 
ing creature,  man,  beast  or  bird,  whose  chief  con- 
cern is  not  with  his  own  species.     A  member  of  a 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  5 

beehive  would  make  a  pretty  poor  bee  if  he  were 
not  convinced  of  the  supreme  importance  of  bees. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Conrad's  books  leave 
no  such  impression  on  the  mind  of  the  average 
reader  as  they  seem  to  have  left  upon  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy. It  is  almost  incredible  that  any  one 
could  read  them  without  feeling,  above  all  else, 
their  vital  and  tremendous  human  interest.  It 
is  quite  true  that  he  deals  by  preference  with 
titanic  forces :  the  unbridled  rage  of  the  ocean, 
the  invincible  sweep  of  a  wind-driven  storm,  the 
unmeasured  and  impenetrable  depths  of  a  tropic 
forest.  But  everywhere  and  always  his  unit  of 
measurement  is  man ;  man  measuring  his  puny 
strength  against  the  universe,  and  foredoomed  to 
defeat ;  yet  in  his  defeat  remaining  always  the 
focal  point  of  interest. 

In  order  to  understand  how  Mr.  Conrad  has 
formed  his  style  and  built  up  his  literary  creed, 
it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  just  a  few  bio- 
graphical details.  Joseph  Conrad  Korzeniowski 
— to  give  him  his  full  original  name — was  born  in 
the  Ukraine  in  about  the  year  1857.  He  comes 
of  an  old  and  illustrious  family,  distinguished  for 
many  services  in  peace  and  in  war.  His  father 
was  a  poet  and  critic,  and  a  translator  of  many 
English  books.  When  he  was  still  a  little  lad,  he 
shared  the  exile  of  his  parents,  following  upon  the 
political   disturbances   of   the   early   sixties — and 


6  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

it  was  as  a  result  of  this  exile  that  his  mother  lost 
her  life,  through  the  callous  refusal  of  the  Rus- 
sian authorities  to  allow  her  time  to  recover  from 
a  dangerous  illness.  The  last  thing  on  earth  that 
his  family  dreamed  of  for  Conrad  was  a  sea  career, 
and  his  choice,  when  announced,  aroused  much 
astonishment  and  some  characteristically  mild  op- 
position. He  has  recorded  the  happenings  of  a 
certain  day  spent  with  his  tutor  in  the  Alps,  as 
being  one  of  the  great  turning  points  in  his  life: 
"  Of  his  devotion  to  his  unworthy  pupil  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  He  had  proved  it  already  by  two 
years  of  unremitting  and  arduous  care.  I  could 
not  hate  him.  But  he  had  been  crushing  me 
slowly,  and  when  he  started  to  argue  on  the  top 
of  the  Furca  Pass  he  was,  perhaps,  nearer  suc- 
cess than  either  he  or  I  imagined."  But  fate  had 
arranged  it  otherwise ;  and  a  seemingly  trivial  in- 
cident turned  the  scales.  They  met  and  passed  a 
middle-aged  and  jovial  Englishman  who,  in  pass- 
ing, cast  upon  the  boy  of  fifteen  "  a  glance  of 
kindly  curiosity  and  a  friendly  gleam  of  big, 
sound,  shiny  teeth  " ;  and  Conrad  says  further, 
with  Ins  naive,  illuminating,  inimitable  power  of 
self-revelation : 

His  glance,  his  smile,  the  unextinguishable  and 
comic  ardor  of  his  striving  forward  appearance, 
helped  me  to  pull  myself  together.  .  .  .  The 
enthusiastic    old    Englishman    had    passed — and    the 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  7 

argument  went  on.  What  reward  could  I  expect 
from  such  a  life  at  the  end  of  my  years,  either  in 
ambition,  honor  or  conscience?  An  unanswerable 
question.  But  I  felt  no  longer  crushed.  Then  our 
eyes  met  and  a  genuine  emotion  was  visible  in  his 
a3  well  as  in  mine.  The  end  came  all  at  once.  He 
picked  up  his  knapsack  suddenly  and  got  onto  his  feet. 
"You  are  an  incorrigible,  hopeless  Don  Quixote. 
That's  what  you  are." 

And  after  that,  adds  Conrad,  there  was  no 
further  question  of  his  "  mysterious  vocation,  no- 
where nor  with  any  one."  There  are  few  things 
in  all  his  autobiography  more  typical  of  the  man 
than  the  ability  shown  here,  to  lay  his  finger 
unerringly  upon  this  seemingly  trivial  little  detail, 
without  which  we  should  never  have  had  Almayer's 
Folly,  nor  all  the  sequence  of  magic  volumes  which 
followed  it.  For  twenty  years,  Conrad  sailed  the 
waters  of  the  globe,  working  his  way  upward  in  the 
English  merchant-marine  service,  through  all  the 
grades,  until  he  won  his  Master's  certificate,  and 
took  chief  command.  There  is  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that,  as  a  seaman,  he  was  as  painstaking  and 
admirable  in  those  days  as  he  now  is  in  the 
capacity  of  author.  But  he  was  unique  among 
seamen  for  his  love  of  reading — for  his  choice  of 
books  and  his  understanding  grasp  of  them.  No 
one  can  study  Conrad  profitably  without  keeping 
these    all-important    formative    years    in    mind; 


8  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

years  spent  in  the  unconscious  amassing  of  infinite 
and  priceless  material,  in  the  slow  absorption  of 
strange  and  alien  personages,  exotic  and  pic- 
turesque cities  and  harbors,  fierce  and  un- 
disciplined regions  on  the  edge  of  the  world; 
all  the  stage-settings  and  raw  materials  for  human 
drama  in  the  bulk.  And  all  the  while  that  he  was 
unconsciously  assimilating  his  material,  Conrad 
was,  with  equal  unconsciousness,  learning  how  best 
to  use  it,  by  his  tireless  and  voracious  reading, — 
reading  of  books  which  some  inborn  instinct  led 
him  to  choose  with  wonderful  wisdom.  The 
French  writers  were  his  favorites,  and  he  learned 
his  respect  of  the  mot  juste  from  Flaubert,  and 
something  of  construction  from  Maupassant.  In 
English,  his  tastes  were  similarly  healthy. 
Dickens  naturally  appealed  to  him  in  a  mild  de- 
gree, for  he  shares  with  Dickens  the  love  of 
drawing  straight  from  life  odd,  grotesque,  often- 
times misshapen  oddities  of  humanity,  and  slightly 
caricaturing  them  in  doing  so.  But  Trollope  is 
an  author  whose  name  crops  up  more  frequently  in 
Conrad's  autobiographical  pages, — and  another 
whose  influence  is  even  more  potent  is  Henry 
James, — Henry  James,  who,  with  all  his  manner- 
isms, has  done  more,  than  any  other  living  master 
of  fiction,  to  teach  those  who  read  him  under- 
standing^, the  sheer  craft  of  story  writing. 
These   facts :   twenty   years    face  to   face  with 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  9 

hardship  and  heroism ;  twenty  years  of  leisure  and 
isolation  in  which  to  grow  up  slowly  to  a  knowledge 
of  precisely  how  he  could  make  the  best  use  of  his 
material;  twenty  years  to  drill  himself  in  a  lan- 
guage to  which  he  was  a  total  stranger  up  to  his 
twentieth  year,  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  those 
critics  who  were  at  one  time  too  ready  to  dismiss 
Conrad's  work  lightly,  as  that  of  a  man  who  had 
not  learned  his  craft.  The  simple  truth  is  that  he 
had  learned  it  with  a  thoroughness  such  as  is  hard 
to  duplicate;  that  he  knows  his  own  reason  for 
every  episode,  every  paragraph,  every  separate 
word ;  that  if  he  makes  a  mistake,  if  there  are 
better  ways  for  doing  any  one  particular  thing, 
his  fault  is  committed  with  his  eyes  open,  and 
in  an  honest  belief  that,  for  him  at  least,  it  is  the 
one  and  only  way. 

Accordingly,  it  is  well  to  take  up  the  two  re- 
proaches most  frequently  made  against  him,  and 
to  consider  to  what  extent  they  are  justified.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  would  be  easy  to  take  up  a 
hundred  apparent  faults  instead  of  two,  because 
there  is  hardly  any  known  rule  of  technique  that 
Mr.  Conrad  does  not  deliberately  break  when  he 
chooses, — for  of  what  good  are  rules  based  on  the 
practice  of  the  older  writers  save  to  be  broken  by 
the  new  writer  who  happens  to  be  big  and  strong 
enough  to  justify  his  iconoclasm?  But  the  two 
reproaches  in  question  are :  first,  that  he  follows  no 


10  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

logical  development  of  a  story,  but  goes  zigzag- 
ging back  and  forth,  from  east  to  west,  from  past 
to  future,  apparently  quite  without  purpose  or 
orientation.  And,  secondly,  that  he  has  no  sense 
of  proportion,  that  some  parts  of  his  stories  are 
inordinately  long,  and  others  absurdly  short ;  that 
he  will  squander  a  full-length  plot  on  a  short  story, 
and  amplify  a  mere  episode  into  four  hundred 
pages.  Both  these  charges  are  true, — a  fact  that 
does  not  matter  in  itself,  but  does  vitally  matter  if 
he  fails  to  prove  that  for  his  specific  purpose  his 
way  is  the  one  and  only  way  to  get  the  best  result. 
Did  you  ever  watch  a  common  garden  spider 
preparing  to  spin  its  web?  From  some  appar- 
ently irrelevant  point  on  a  leaf  or  branch,  it  sud- 
denly drops  a  number  of  inches  to  some  other 
equally  irrelevant  point ;  then  it  proceeds  at  a 
tangent  to  a  new  point  of  departure,  hesitates, 
retraces  its  steps,  picks  up  some  lost  thread, 
crosses  and  recrosses  its  path,  pausing  to  tie  a 
knot  here  and  there, — and  all  of  a  sudden  this 
apparently  aimless  zigzagging  takes  on  a  definite 
design,  of  perfect  and  marvelous  symmetry.  Now, 
it  may  be  cheerfully  granted  that  this  would  not 
be  the  approved  method  of  knitting  stockings  or 
weaving  calico ;  there  are  some  purposes,  and 
worthy  ones,  where  the  conventional,  straight- 
ahead  method  is  praiseworthy.  But  there  are  cer- 
tain types  of  genius  that  must  work  according  to 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  11 

their  inborn  nature :  and  it  happens  that  Mr.  Con- 
rad shares  with  the  spider  the  genius  of  the  zig- 
zag method,  and  by  the  help  of  it  spins  fabrics 
quite  as  marvelous  and  inimitable.  He  cannot 
help  himself;  his  mind  works  in  that  way.  When, 
in  Almayer's  Folly,  he  tells  us  the  story  of  the 
degeneration  of  a  white  man  exiled  in  the  heart 
of  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  of  his  crushing  dis- 
appointment at  the  marriage  of  his  half-caste 
daughter  with  a  native,  it  is  characteristic  of  him 
that  the  story  should  open  when  the  end  is  already 
is  sight,  and  that  a  majority  of  the  chapters 
should  be  concerned  with  filling  in  the  missing 
links ;  still  more  characteristic  that  a  subsequent 
volume,  The  Outcast  of  the  Island,  announced  as 
a  sequel,  should  prove  to  be,  not  a  continuation, — 
since  Almayer's  Folly  left  nothing  to  continue, — 
but  rather  a  sort  of  preface,  reverting  to  the 
earlier  da}rs  of  Almayer's  prosperity  and  his 
daughter's  infancy.  A  still  more  convincing 
proof  that  this  is  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Conrad 
sees  a  story  is  that  he  adopts  the  same  identical 
method  for  telling  his  own  biography.  A  Per- 
sonal Record  is  an  exceptionally  frank  and  self- 
revealing  document  covering  Mr.  Conrad's  entire 
life,  from  his  earliest  recollections  down  to  the 
present  day;  but  the  first  of  its  eight  chapters 
opens  during  the  winter  in  the  early  nineties,  when 
he  was   icebound  in   the   river  harbor  of  Rouen, 


12  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

when  he  was  engaged  in  writing  the  tenth  chapter 
of  Almayer's  Folly, — and  no  two  chapters  and 
scarcely  two  pages  are  consecutive  in  point  of 
time.  And  the  reason  for  this  is  so  palpable  that 
even  a  dunce  could  hardly  miss  it.  The  greatest 
adventure  that  Mr.  Conrad's  soul  ever  underwent 
was  his  first  experiment  in  fiction:  and  accord- 
ingly his  biography  is  built  up  with  the  deliberate 
intent  of  making  the  genesis  of  Almayer's  Folly, 
from  its  inception  to  its  final  publication,  the  one 
triumphant  leitmotiv  of  his  whole  life  history. 

In  precisely  the  same  way  we  may  explain  the 
indirect  and  zigzag  progress  of  his  other  writings. 
Your  cut-and-dried  critic,  who  insists  on  measur- 
ing a  mountain  with  a  footrule  and  quarrels  with 
it  for  daring  to  be  out  of  line,  insists  also  on 
labeling  a  certain  character  hero  and  another 
heroine.  And,  naturally,  when  this  critic  notes 
that  his  so-called  hero  drops  out  of  sight  for  a 
considerable  number  of  chapters,  and,  it  may  be, 
the  heroine  vanishes  altogether  in  mid-channel, 
he  feels  himself  aggrieved  and  says  that  the 
author  does  not  know  how  to  construct.  The 
truth  about  Mr.  Conrad  is  simply  this :  he  is  more 
likely  than  not  to  take  some  force  of  nature  as  his 
protagonist ;  in  Typhoon,  the  leading  part  is 
taken,  not  by  Captain  MacWhirr,  nor  his  under- 
officer,  nor  by  any  one  of  the  two  hundred  coolies 
between  decks,  but  by  the  typhoon  itself.     And, 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  13 

similarly,  in  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus,  the 
leading  part  is  not  taken  by  any  one  of  the  of- 
ficers or  crew, — not  even  by  the  Nigger  of  the 
title, — indeed,  like  Vanity  Fair,  it  might  be  called 
A  Novel  Without  a  Hero,  and  with  only  one 
heroine,  the  treacherous,  implacable   sea. 

And,  secondly,  as  regards  the  question  of  sheer 
material  length  in  story  writing.  It  is  a  deep- 
rooted  fallacy  that  there  are  some  themes  suit- 
able for  a  full-length  novel  and  others  fit  only  for 
a  short  story.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  such  a  dis- 
tinction is  disastrously  misleading.  There  are 
some  minds  who  see  in  a  battlefield  a  long-volume 
epic,  a  Peace  and  War,  a  Debacle;  there  are 
others  who,  like  Browning,  see  only  an  "  Incident 
of  the  French  Camp,"  material  at  most  for  a 
dozen  lines  of  verse.  The  difference  does  not  lie 
in  the  theme,  but  in  the  temperament  of  the  in- 
dividual, the  fashion  in  which  he  looks  upon  life 
in  general  and  upon  some  specific  story  in  par- 
ticular. In  the  whole  range  of  contemporary  fic- 
tion it  would  be  difficult  to  find  this  truth  better 
exemplified  than  it  is  in  the  work  of  Conrad.  In 
all  of  his  writings  he  has  set  his  own  pace,  fallen 
into  his  own  particular  stride,  so  to  speak,  ig- 
noring all  precedents  regarding  a  conventional 
proportion  between  subject  and  space,  crumpling 
up  a  world-wide  theme  into  the  narrow  limits  of  a 
few  pages,  and  stretching  out  some  transitory  in- 


14  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

cident  into  the  bulk  of  a  portly  volume, — and  yet 
the  very  last  objection  which  a  critic,  who  has 
learned  to  read  understandingly  and  recognizes 
genius  in  unfamiliar  garb,  would  dream  of  mak- 
ing, is  that  certain  of  his  stories  are  too  short 
and  certain  others  too  long.  Take,  for  instance, 
his  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus — better  known  in  this 
country  as  Children  of  the  Sea, — being  one  of  the 
many  English  stories  whose  titles  have  suffered 
an  unfortunate  sea-change  during  their  passage 
into  an  American  edition.  Let  any  other  writer 
submit  the  synopsis  of  the  plot  to  his  publisher, 
and,  if  that  publisher  knows  his  business,  he  will 
tell  the  author  frankly  that  there  is  barely  enough 
plot  in  it  for  a  Sunday  special,  to  say  nothing 
of  a  book.  Yet  Mr.  Conrad  wove  out  of  it  a 
magic  volume,  full  of  the  life  and  breadth  and 
infinite  variety  of  the  sea;  and,  in  the  center  of 
the  picture,  the  inert  figure  of  a  sickly,  malinger- 
ing negro  stands  out  as  clear-cut  as  an  ebony  idol 
against  a  background  of  ivory,  mysterious,  fore- 
boding, the  embodiment  of  fate.  Or  again,  take 
The  Heart  of  Darkness,  one  of  the  shortest  stories 
Mr.  Conrad  has  written,  and  at  the  same  time 
containing  one  of  the  biggest,  most  suggestive  of 
his  themes.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  presentment 
of  the  clashing  of  two  continents,  a  symbolic  pic- 
ture of  the  inborn  antagonism  of  two  races,  the 
white  and  the  black.     It  pictures  the  subtle  dis- 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  15 

integration  of  a  white  man's  moral  stamina  under 
the  stress  of  the  darkness,  the  isolation,  the  im- 
mensity of  the  African  jungle:  the  loss  of  dignity 
and  courage  and  self-respect  through  daily  con- 
tact with  the  native  man  and  the  native  woman. 
The  whole  thing  is  a  matter  of  a  few  score  pages, 
and  yet,  such  is  its  strength  coupled  with  a  cer- 
tain indescribable  trick  of  verbal  foreshortening, 
that  it  gives  the  impression  of  measureless  time 
and  distance.  We  feel  that  we  have  spent  years 
in  his  company,  roaming  through  the  murky  at- 
mosphere of  physical  and  moral  darkness — and 
still  beyond  stretch  unexplored  vistas,  measure- 
less, forbidding,  unspeakable. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  Mr.  Conrad's  style, 
unique  and  finished  as  it  is,  does  not  make  easy 
reading.  It  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  the 
depth,  the  mystery,  the  riotous  luxuriance  of 
those  tropical  forests  wherein  so  many  of  his 
earlier  stories  were  laid.  There  are  whole  pages 
and  chapters  where  you  are  forced  to  move  for- 
ward gropingly,  with  the  caution  of  a  pioneer, 
peering  ahead  at  the  vague  forms  of  thought  that 
you  see  suggested  ;  and  then,  suddenly,  there  comes 
an  open  spot,  illuminated  with  the  sunshine  of 
perfectly  clear  mental  pictures,  crowding  tumul- 
tuously  upon  you ;  a  flash  and  flare  of  rainbow 
coloring  seems  to  streak  the  page  with  scarlet 
and    purple    and    gold.     That,    in    brief,    is    an 


16  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

epitome  of  Conrad's  art ;  to  keep  you  at  one  time 
groping  in  the  dark,  shrinking  from  unguessed 
horrors,  dimly  seen  through  the  fog  and  mist; 
and  the  next  moment  to  blind  you  with  the  un- 
expected flood  of  mental  light.  And  back  of 
his  method  lies  a  vein  of  unguessed  rich- 
ness, an  inexhaustible  mine  of  untold  stories. 
He  gives  you  the  impression  that,  instead  of  pour- 
ing out  all  that  he  knows  of  strange  lands  and 
alien  races,  he  is  holding  himself  severely  in  check, 
— sketching  in  here  and  there  one  face  and  form 
out  of  the  hundreds  that  elbow  themselves  for- 
ward in  his  memory;  condensing  these  sketches 
down  to  the  fewest  possible,  strong,  impressionistic 
strokes,  so  as  to  leave  space  on  his  crowded  can- 
vas for  other  importunate  memories  constantly 
clamoring  for  recognition.  Other  writers  before 
Conrad  have  possessed  the  art  of  painting  crowds, 
jostling  throngs  in  the  street,  armies  of  men  on 
the  march  and  in  the  heat  of  action ;  but  they 
have  produced  their  effects  by  a  flood  of  detail 
poured  out  upon  the  page  with  the  reckless  lav- 
ishness  of  one  who  paints  with  a  palette  knife. 
Conrad's  distinction  lies  in  the  power  of  sug- 
gestion, the  ability  to  make  you  feel  that,  how- 
ever much  he  shows  you  of  life,  there  is  vastly 
more  that  he  leaves  untold. 

To    produce    these    effects,    it    is    not    enough 
merely  to  will  to  do  so.     It  is  necessary  above  all 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  17 

to  be  a  consummate  master  of  words,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  have  a  profound  reverence  for  them. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Mr.  Conrad  is  in 
this  respect  the  peer  of  Rudyard  Kipling, — with 
this  difference:  that  being  an  alien  by  birth,  he 
does,  in  a  deliberate  and  highly  sophisticated  way, 
what  the  author  of  Kim  does  by  instinct.  In  this 
connection,  it  is  profitable  to  take  two  extracts 
from  Conrad's  own  avowals,  the  first  dating  back 
to  the  beginning  of  his  career  as  an  artist,  in 
about  1897 ;  the  second  representing  his  latest  ut- 
terance. The  first  appeared  in  a  most  interesting 
personal  foot-note  in  the  New  Review: 

It  is  only  through  complete,  unswerving  devotion 
to  the  perfect  blending  of  form  and  substance;  it  is 
only  through  an  unremitting,  never  discouraged  care 
for  the  shape  and  ring  of  sentences  that  an  approach 
can  be  made  to  plasticity,  to  color;  and  the  light  of 
magic  suggestiveness  may  be  brought  to  play  for  an 
evanescent  instant  over  the  commonplace  surface  of 
words;  of  the  old,  old  words,  worn  thin,  defaced  by 
ages  of  careless  usage.  The  sincere  endeavor  to  ac- 
complish that  creative  task,  to  go  as  far  on  that  road 
as  his  strength  will  carry  him,  to  go  undeterred  by 
faltering,  weariness  or  reproach,  is  the  only  valid 
justification  for  the  worker  in  prose.  And  if  his 
conscience  is  clear,  his  answer  to  those  who,  in  the 
fullness  of  a  wisdom  which  looks  for  immediate  profit, 
demand  specifically  to  be  edified,  consoled,  amused; 


18  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

who  demand  to  be  promptly  improved,  or  encour- 
aged, or  frightened,  or  shocked,  or  charmed,  must 
run  thus:  My  task  which  I  am  trying  to  achieve  is, 
by  the  power  of  the  written  word,  to  make  you  hear, 
to  make  you  feel — it  is,  before  all,  to  make  you  see. 
That — and  no  more,  and  it  is  everything.  If  I  suc- 
ceed, you  shall  find  there,  according  to  your  deserts, 
encouragement,  consolation,  fear,  charm — all  you  de- 
mand; and,  perhaps,  also  that  glimpse  of  truth  for 
which  you  have  forgotten  to  ask. 

The  second  extract  will  be  found  in  "  A 
Familiar  Preface,"  which  forms  the  introduction 
to  A  Personal  Record: 

He  who  wants  to  persuade  should  put  his  trust, 
not  in  the  right  argument,  but  in  the  right  word.  The 
power  of  sound  has  always  been  greater  than  the 
power  of  sense.  I  don't  say  this  by  way  of  dis- 
paragement. It  is  better  for  mankind  to  be  impres- 
sionable than  reflective.  Nothing  humanly  great — 
great,  I  mean,  as  affecting  a  whole  mass  of  lives — 
has  come  from  reflection.  On  the  other  hand,  you 
cannot  fail  to  see  the  power  of  mere  words ;  such 
words  as  Glory,  for  instance,  or  Pity.  I  won't  men- 
tion any  more.  They  are  not  far  to  seek.  Shouted 
with  perseverance,  with  ardor,  with  conviction,  these 
two  by  their  sound  alone  have  set  whole  nations  in 
motion  and  upheaved  the  dry,  hard  ground  on  which 
rests  our  whole,  social  fabric.  There's  "  virtue  "  for 
you  if  you  like!     .     .     ,. 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  19 

Mr.  Conrad  is  not  one  of  the  authors  whom  it 
is  profitable  to  study  book  by  book.  In  spite 
of  a  few  dissenting  opinions,  he  has  not  greatly 
grown  in  the  course  of  years.  He  is  one  of  those 
rare  Minervas  of  literature  who  issued  in  the  first 
instance  of  full  stature.  Almayer's  Folly,  his 
first  volume,  the  product  of  five  years  of  inter- 
mittent and  laborious,  although  loving  work,  has 
remained,  there  is  reason  to  suspect,  the  favorite 
child  of  his  brain.  The  theme  already  mentioned, 
— that  of  the  disintegration  of  the  European 
amid  the  debasing  surroundings  of  Eastern  bar- 
barism, is  one  to  which  he  reverts  again  and 
again,  in  his  later  works.  But  coming  first,  it 
had,  not  only  the  glamor  of  a  maiden  effort,  but, 
what  was  infinitely  more  important  to  the  author, 
the  nostalgia  of  vanished  days,  the  fascination  of 
une  chose  vecue.  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus  is 
almost  equally  a  personal  document.  It  repre- 
sents a  composite  picture  of  the  types  of  officers 
and  seamen  grown  familiar  through  a  score  of 
years.  It  is  impossible  to  appreciate  even  re- 
motely the  personal  element  of  this  book  without 
having  read  a  volume  which  followed  it  a  decade 
later,  The  Mirror  of  the  Sea.  In  reading  that 
storehouse  of  personal  reminiscences,  one  guesses 
between  the  lines  how  much  heart-ache,  how  many 
lost  friendships,  what  a  host  of  vanished  memories 
went  into   the  making  of  that  wonderful  verbal 


20  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

mosaic  which  American  readers  know  under  the 
name  of  Children  of  the  Sea. 

Close  upon  its  heels  followed  a  volume  of  short 
stories, — really  short  stories,  in  the  accepted  sense, 
— entitled  Tales  of  Unrest.  This  is  worth  an 
additional  emphasis,  because  it  called  forth  the 
first  big  public  recognition  that  Conrad  received. 
Together  with  Hewlett's  Forest  Lovers  and  Sid- 
ney Lee's  Life  of  William  Shakespeare,  it  com- 
pleted the  trio  of  volumes  which  at  that  time 
the  London  Academy  was  in  the  habit  of  "  crown- 
ing "  each  year  and  rewarding  with  a  prize  of 
fifty  guineas.  Most  of  the  stories  in  this  vol- 
ume are  wrought  from  his  familiar  material  of 
Malays,  half-castes,  and  degenerate  Europeans ; 
but  there  is  just  one  story,  "  The  Return,"  which 
is  worth  signaling,  because  it  is  his  first,  last  and 
only  attempt  to  do  the  familiar  French  analytical 
story  of  wedded  incompatibility.  It  is  memorable 
because  it  comes  so  exasperatingly  near  being  a 
tremendously  big  story, — and  instead,  speaking 
frankly,  it  is  a  failure.  The  scene  is  London,  the 
chief  actors  are  an  average  business  man  and  his 
still  more  average  wife.  He  thinks  he  under- 
stands her.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  have 
through  five  years  been  imperceptibly  drifting 
apart.  One  day  he  comes  home  as  usual,  to  find 
awaiting  him  a  letter  from  her,  telling  him  that 
she  has  eloped  with  another  man.     His  surprise, 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  21 

his  conventional  dismay,  his  whole  cut-and-dried 
attitude  of  mind  are  interpreted  with  a  skill  that 
baffles  praise.  But,  because  she  is  the  hopelessly 
average  woman,  she  lacks  the  courage  of  her  re- 
volt ;  she  comes  back.  And  here  comes  the  part 
that  spoils  the  story.  Throughout  a  dialogue 
that  drifts  on  endlessly,  the  woman  remains  a 
living,  throbbing  bundle  of  nerves,  and  the  man 
becomes  a  stilted,  unreal  mouthpiece  of  Mr.  Con- 
rad's vain  imaginings.  Mr.  Galsworthy  was  ab- 
solutely right  when  he  said  that  the  hero  of  this 
story  was  one  of  the  few  instances  in  which  Con- 
rad had  drawn  a  character  that  was  hopelessly 
wooden. 

As  already  suggested,  there  is  no  purpose  in 
analyzing  one  by  one  all  of  Conrad's  stories.  Be- 
cause of  his  peculiar  trick  of  foreshortening, 
some  of  his  longest  books  may  be  summed  up  in 
a  dozen  words.  Lord  Jim,  which  many  com- 
petent judges  regard  as  his  masterpiece,  is  simply 
the  epic  of  a  man's  rehabilitation  after  being 
proved  a  coward.  Typhoon  is  an  allegory,  half 
epic,  half  satiric,  of  the  impotence  of  physical  life 
before  the  blind,  unchained  forces  of  nature, — a 
fable  told  with  all  the  forceful  brevity  of  Le 
Chene  et  le  Roseau  of  La  Fontaine.  Nostromo 
belongs  to  a  different  category.  From  whatever 
side  you  view  it,  it  is  too  big,  too  complex,  too 
full  of  dim,  unfathomed  places,  to  be  easily  or 


22  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

briefly  epitomized.  More  than  one  critic  has 
openly  avowed  his  preference  for  this  book,  and 
the  present  writer  owns  his  personal  predilection 
for  it.  It  has  more  actual  story  to  it,  of  a 
dramatic  sort,  more  of  the  greed  and  sordidness 
and  knavery  of  human  nature,  than  any  of  Con- 
rad's previous  books.  Primarily,  it  is  the  story  of 
a  silver  mine  and  a  buried  treasure,  in  a  little 
South  American  republic,  where  the  people,  like 
the  republic  itself,  are  volcanic.  It  is  a  kaleido- 
scopic picture  of  a  grasping,  rapacious  conflict 
between  a  government,  on  the  one  hand,  ever  tot- 
tering on  the  brink  of  revolution ;  and  the  private 
owners  of  the  mine,  on  the  other,  for  such  mutual 
concessions  and  privileges  as  would  convert  that 
mine  from  the  white  elephant  it  has  always  been 
into  a  profitable  investment.  More  specifically,  it 
is  the  story  of  the  life  of  an  exceptional  man. 
Nostromo,  as  he  is  called  by  his  English  em- 
ployers, the  officials  of  the  Oceanic  Steam  Navi- 
gation Company, — who  coin  the  name  out  of  the 
Italian  words  which  they  misunderstand  and  mis- 
pronounce,— is  a  Genoese  sailor,  who  decides  to 
remain  at  Sulaco,  in  the  capacity  of  Capataz  de 
Cargadores,  captain  of  the  company's  lighter- 
men and  caretaker  of  the  jetty.  Now,  the  key- 
note of  Nostromo's  character  is  a  curious  sort  of 
pride,  a  love  of  self-importance.  By  day  and  by 
night,  sleepless,  vigilant,  alert,  he  is  ever  at  the 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  23 

service  of  the  entire  population,  native  and  for- 
eign. Of  infinite  resource  and  magnetic  tempera- 
ment, he  has  worked  his  way  into  the  confidence 
and  esteem  of  Spanish  officials,  English  agents, 
and  the  scum  and  rabble  of  the  foreign  quarters ; 
and  none  in  Sulaco  is  too  low  or  too  high  to  touch 
hat  to  him  and  exchange  cordial  words  of  greeting. 
Perhaps  the  nearest  approach  to  a  brief  analysis 
of  the  complex  web  of  this  book  is  to  say  that  it 
tells  how  this  Nostromo,  whose  pride  and  joy, 
whose  whole  stock-in-trade  in  life  is  his  integrity, 
his  unblemished  reputation,  becomes  a  thief, — it 
is  a  study  of  the  curse  which  may  come  from  the 
secret  knowledge  of  a  buried  treasure. 

In  view  of  the  personal  preference  above  ex- 
pressed for  this  volume,  above  his  other  writings, 
it  seems  worth  while  to  quote  Mr.  Conrad's  own 
words,  telling  us  how  large  a  place  it  held  in  his 
own  life,  during  the  greater  part  of  two  years : 

Nostromo,  a  tale  of  an  imaginary  (but  true)  sea- 
board, which  is  still  mentioned  now  and  again, 
and  indeed  kindly,  sometimes,  in  connection  with 
the  word  "  failure "  and  sometimes  in  conjunction 
with  the  word  "  astonishing."  I  have  no  opinion  on 
this  discrepancy.  It's  the  sort  of  difference  that  can 
never  be  settled.  All  I  know  is  that,  for  twenty 
months,  neglecting  the  common  joys  of  life  that  fall 
to  the  lot  of  the  humblest  on  this  earth,  I  had,  like 
the  prophet  of  old,  "  wrestled  with  the  Lord  "  for  my 


24  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

creation,  for  the  headlands  of  the  coast,  for  the  dark- 
ness of  the  Placid  Gulf,  the  light  on  the  snows,  the 
clouds  on  the  sky,  and  for  the  breath  of  life  that  had 
to  be  blown  into  the  shapes  of  men  and  women,  of 
Latin  and  Saxon,  of  Jew  and  Gentile.  These  are, 
perhaps,  strong  words,  but  it  is  difficult  to  character- 
ize otherwise  the  intimacy  and  the  strain  of  a  creative 
effort  in  which  mind  and  will  and  conscience  are 
engaged  to  the  full,  hour  after  hour,  day  after  day, 
away  from  the  world,  and  to  the  exclusion  of  all  that 
makes  life  really  lovable  and  gentle — something  for 
which  a  material  parallel  can  only  be  found  in  the 
everlasting  somber  stress  of  the  westward  winter 
passage  round  Cape  Horn. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  two  novels,  Nostromo 
and  Lord  Jim,  come  a  number  of  mid-length 
stories,  including  Heart  of  Darkness,  already  al- 
luded to ;  and  Typhoon,  that  unequaled  picture 
of  the  titanic  warfare  between  sea  and  sky,  in 
which  a  vessel  laden  with  human  freight  is  made 
the  colossal  joke  of  the  elements,  and  we  are 
shown  the  inimitable  sight  of  two  hundred  Chinese 
coolies,  together  with  their  sundered  chests, 
hurtling  back  and  forth  between  decks,  clawing 
and  snarling  like  so  many  cats,  in  their  vain  pur- 
suit of  an  infinite  number  of  fugitive  silver 
dollars. 

Two  or  three  more  of  these  middle-distance 
stories   deserve  mention.     To-morrow  pictures   a 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  25 

father  who  has  disinherited  his  son,  driven  him 
from  home,  and  later  repented  of  the  act. 
Through  long,  lonely  years  he  has  comforted  him- 
self with  the  belief  that  the  son  will  some  day  re- 
turn, perhaps  to-morrow — and  he  has  brooded 
upon  this  hope  until  it  has  become  a  fixed  idea,  an 
obsession,  that  the  son  will  come  to-morrow.  At 
last  the  son  does  come,  but  since  things  in  this 
material,  work-a-day  world  necessarily  happen  in 
the  present,  and  not  in  the  future,  the  father's 
clouded  brain  refuses  to  recognize  him,  because 
he  has  come  to-day,  when  he  should  have  come  to- 
morrow,— the  morrow  which  must  always  remain 
in  the  future.  Equally  simple  is  the  structure  of 
Amy  Foster,  the  story  of  a  mute,  inglorious 
tragedy.  It  pictures  the  fate  of  a  young  Slavonic 
emigrant,  driven,  together  with  hordes  of  his 
kind,  on  board  an  ocean  liner,  tossed  for  days  in 
a  watery  prison,  and  then  cast  by  night  upon  the 
English  coast,  the  sole  survivor  of  a  whole  ship's 
company.  Ignorant  of  his  whereabouts,  speaking 
an  outlandish  tongue,  hounded,  penniless  and 
hungry,  from  door  to  door,  a  terror  to  women  and 
children,  who  think  him  a  madman,  he  dies  at  last 
in  destitution,  like  a  homeless  dog,  having  awak- 
ened a  passing  compassion  in  just  one  heart,  the 
Amy  Foster  of  the  title.  In  reducing  these 
crowded,  concentrated  stories  of  Conrad's  to  a 
mere  skeleton,  it  is  so  easy  to  over-reach  one's  self. 


26  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

It  is  only  fair  to  say,  by  way  of  postscript,  that 
there  is  a  second  interest  in  this  story.  Amy 
Foster,  caught,  like  many  another  woman  before 
her,  by  sheer  novelty,  marries  the  refugee,  and 
then,  strangely  enough,  and  yet  as  the  doctor 
says,  not  without  parallel,  after  her  child  is  born, 
she  conceives  a  growing  dislike  for  him.  There  is, 
perhaps,  in  all  of  Mr.  Conrad's  writings,  no  single 
scene  more  poignant  than  that  in  which  the  dying 
Slav,  delirious  from  fever,  forgets  his  few  words  of 
English,  and,  in  his  frantic  supplications  for 
water,  which  might  have  saved  his  life,  frightens 
out  of  the  house  the  woman  who  has  vowed  to 
love,  honor  and  obey,  and  who  leaves  him  to  die  in 
agony. 

But  one  of  the  finest  and  most  characteristic 
stories  that  Mr.  Conrad  ever  wrote  is  Folk. 
Curiously  enough,  it  is  drawn,  in  a  measure,  from 
a  memory  of  his  childhood.  There  was  a  family 
legend  of  a  great-uncle  who  served  under  Na- 
poleon, and  who,  during  the  retreat  from  Moscow, 
owed  his  life  to  the  capture  and  utilization,  for 
culinary  purposes,  of  a  very  old,  very  mangy, 
Lithuanian  dog.  "  It  was  not  thin — on  the  con- 
trary, it  seemed  unhealthily  obese ;  its  skin  showed 
bare  patches  of  an  unpleasant  character.  How- 
ever, they  had  not  killed  that  dog  for  the  sake 
of  the  pelt.  He  was  large.  ...  He  was  eaten. 
.  .  .  The  rest  is  silence.  .  .  ."     In  his  childhood, 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  27 

Mr.  Conrad  underwent  innumerable  pleasurable 
shudders  over  the  story  of  the  cooking  and  con- 
sumption of  that  dog.  He  confesses  that,  in  sober 
middle-age,  he  still  can  shudder  over  the  memory 
of  that  story. 

I  have  lived  on  ancient  salt  junk,  I  know  the 
taste  of  shark,  of  trepang,  of  snake,  of  nondescript 
dishes  containing  things  without  a  name — but  of  the 
Lithuanian  village  dog — never !  I  wish  it  to  be  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  it  is  not  I,  but  my  grand- 
uncle  Nicholas,  of  the  Polish  landed  gentry,  Chevalier 
de  la  Legion  d'Honneur,  etc.,  who,  in  his  young  days, 
had  eaten  the  Lithuanian  dog.  I  wish  he  had  not. 
The  childish  horror  of  the  deed  clings  absurdly  to 
the  grizzled  man.    I  am  perfectly  helpless  against  it. 

Now,  Mr.  Conrad  does  not  admit  any  connec- 
tion between  this  incident  and  Falk.  Neverthe- 
less, it  takes  no  special  discernment  to  realize  that 
without  that  childhood  thrill,  something  would 
have  been  missing  from  the  tale.  On  the  sur- 
face, Falk  gives  promise  of  pure  comedy, — a  trick 
not  without  precedent  in  Mr.  Conrad's  method  of 
work.  It  opens  with  a  grotesque  wooing  of  a 
Dutch  girl,  phlegmatic,  florid,  and  opulent  of 
physique,  by  a  thin,  taciturn  Scandinavian  pilot, 
on  board  her  uncle's  vessel  in  the  harbor  of  a 
Chinese  river  town.  But  Falk  is  a  man  haunted 
by  the  memory  of  a  revolting  deed;  he  shows  it 


28  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

in  his  face,  somber,  taciturn,  sinister,  and  in  his 
manner,    his    trick    of   periodically    covering    his 
features  with  both  hands,  and  then  drawing  them 
downwards  with  a  slow,  shuddering  movement,  as 
though  to  wipe  away  the  vision  of  a  waking  night- 
mare.     The   truth   is   that   once,   under   the   dire 
stress  of  shipwreck  and  starvation,  it  had  become 
evident  that  human  flesh  alone  stood  between   a 
whole  ship's  crew  and  death.     In  the  face  of  this 
horror,  they  had  not  drawn  lots,  but  had  fallen 
upon  one  another  like  wild  beasts,  and  Falk,  in 
whom  the  lust  for  life  had  been  strongest,  was  the 
sole   survivor.     For   six  years   this   memory  has 
haunted  him ;  and  now  his  suffering  is  doubled,  be- 
cause he  has  at  last  found  a  woman  "  generous  of 
form,  Olympian  and  simple,  indeed  the  siren  to 
fascinate   the   dark   navigator,"   and   he   is   con- 
fronted  with   the   question   whether    any   woman 
could  knowingly  wed  a  man  who  has  been  guilty  of 
cannibalism. 

Of  Mr.  Conrad's  more  recent  books  it  is  not 
necessary  to  speak  at  this  time  and  in  this  place. 
Whatever  he  does,  whether  alone  or  in  collabora- 
tion, whether  in  the  form  of  fiction  or  personal 
reminiscence,  is  all  essentially  imbued  with  the 
same  spirit,  and  stamped  with  the  same  careful  and 
deliberate  workmanship,  the  same  daring  original- 
ity of  style.  But  the  true,  the  unadulterated  soul 
of  Conrad  is  in  the  books  of  his  middle  period,  in 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  29 

the  shorter  stories,  such  as  Typhoon  and  Heart  of 
Darkness,  in  novels  like  Nostromo  and  Lord  Jim. 
To  spend  time  analyzing  his  tales  of  anarchists, 
whether  in  London,  as  in  The  Secret  Agent,  or  in 
Russia,  as  in  Under  Western  Eyes,  would  be  for 
the  present  purpose  an  anticlimax.  It  is  true 
that  Mr.  Conrad  is  a  sort  of  literary  amphibian ; 
he  is  almost  as  much  at  home  when  writing  of  the 
land  as  of  the  sea.  None  the  less,  the  latter  is 
his  true  abode,  and  his  best  pages  are  those  that 
deal  with  ships  and  harbors,  docks  and  quays, 
sluggish  tropical  rivers,  swarming  water  fronts, 
and  all  the  motley  crowds,  the  flaring  colors,  the 
babel  of  speech,  the  unnumbered  and  indistinguish- 
able mixture  of  racial  types  and  nationalities,  to 
be  found  nowhere  on  earth  save  where  land  and 
sea  touch  shoulders.  Yet,  if  one  were  making  a 
prediction,  it  would  be  safest  to  say  that  Mr. 
Conrad  will  live  longest  in  his  pages  of  the  life 
on  ships  in  mid-ocean.  In  certain  unforgettable 
pages  in  The  Mirror  of  the  Sea,  he  tells  us  of  a 
first  mate  under  whom  he  once  sailed,  and  who, 
during  the  long  weeks  spent  in  an  Australian  port, 
habitually  returned  from  shore  intoxicated,  in 
the  mid  watches  of  the  night.  And  one  night, 
when  more  unsteady  than  usual,  the  mate  lingered 
on  deck  a  moment,  swaying  heavily  and  support- 
ing himself  on  his  companion's  arm,  and  voiced  his 
wish  that  he  were  out  at  sea :  "  Ports  are  no  good ; 


30  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

ships  rot,  men  go  to  the  devil !  "  And  that  one 
sentence  sums  up  the  difference  between  Conrad's 
stories  of  the  sea  and  of  the  harbor.  They  are 
equally  good,  equally  poignant  with  truth ;  but 
on  the  one  hand,  the  stories  of  the  sea  breathe 
freely  of  ozone  and  clean  salt  spray,  and  simple 
faith  and  bravery ;  and  on  the  other,  the  stories  of 
the  harbor  are  redolent  of  physical  and  moral  de- 
cay :  "  Ships  rot,  men  go  to  the  devil."  Through- 
out Conrad's  stories,  he  shows  us  man  fighting  a 
losing  fight;  but  at  sea  it  is  a  physical  fight,  and 
on  land  it  is  a  moral  one.  In  either  case,  his  work- 
manship remains,  as  it  always  has  been,  very  nearly 
flawless. 


WILLIAM   FREND  DE   MORGAN 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

Of  the  various  English  novelists  who  have  come 
into  prominence  since  the  opening  of  the  twentieth 
century,  the  case  of  Mr.  De  Morgan  is  in  a  num- 
ber of  ways  exceptional.  Here  we  have  a  man  in 
advanced  middle  age  suddenly  and  successfully  in- 
vading a  new  field  of  art,  breaking  all  records  for 
belated  achievement  in  fiction,  venturing  with  the 
courage  of  inexperience  to  give  us  stories  running 
close  upon  a  quarter-million  of  words  and  written 
in  the  manner  of  half  a  century  ago, — and  never- 
theless receiving  an  immediate,  enthusiastic  and 
widespread  acclaim  almost  without  precedent.  It 
is  probably  for  these  reasons  that  practically  all 
the  critics  who  have  devoted  any  extended  space  to 
an  analysis  of  Mr.  De  Morgan's  writings  have 
bestowed  a  quite  disproportionate  attention  upon 
genealogical  and  biographical  details, — much  as 
though  the  author  in  question  were  a  newly  dis- 
covered zoological  species,  and  it  behooved  them  to 
trace  carefully  his  line  of  evolution. 

For  practical  purposes  of  criticism,  however, 
all  that  we  need  to  remember  about  Mr.  De  Mor- 
gan's personal  history  is  that  he  began  life  as  an 

31 


32       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

artist,  abandoned  painting  five  years  later  in 
favor  of  making  designs  for  stained  glass,  entered 
shortly  afterward  upon  the  manufacture  of  pot- 
tery, and,  in  spite  of  small  pecuniary  returns,  con- 
tinued to  devote  himself  to  ceramics  until  the  age 
of  sixty-four,  when  his  first  novel,  Joseph  Vance, 
was  published.  These  few  brief  details  picture  a 
man  who,  in  spite  of  versatility,  has  always  con- 
sistently adhered  to  one  or  another  form  of 
creative  art;  yet,  quite  early  in  life,  rejected  that 
form  which,  even  more  than  literature,  demands 
an  inborn  gift  for  grouping  and  composition,  a 
fine  instinct  for  proportion  and  symmetry.  Mr. 
De  Morgan's  chief  preoccupation,  throughout  half 
a  normal  lifetime,  was  the  beauty  of  minute  detail, 
the  quality  of  glaze  upon  a  teacup,  the  excellence 
of  color  or  design  in  a  tile.  His  is  the  type  of 
mind  which  gradually,  through  the  passage  of 
years,  might  be  expected  to  gather  up  a  treasure- 
house  of  fine,  delicate,  unique  ideas  about  life  in 
general,  much  as  a  connoisseur  gathers  together 
rare  gems  of  porcelain,  quite  indifferent  as  to 
whether  they  group  themselves  harmoniously  upon 
their  respective  shelves. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  Mr.  l)e  Morgan's  first 
novel  proved  to  be  precisely  what  might  have  been 
expected:  a  novel  almost  destitute  of  plot  con- 
struction, and  with  as  many  loose  ends  of  nar- 
rative, as  many  interruptions  and  asides  of  author 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       33 

to  gentle  reader  as  may  be  found  in  Dickens  and 
Thackeray  in  their  most  unrestrained  mood.  The 
author  of  Joseph  Vance  may  or  may  not  be  a 
reader  of  modern  fiction  ;  but  so  far  as  the  internal 
evidence  of  his  own  volumes  goes,  his  reading  may 
well  have  stopped  with  the  decease  of  the  great 
Early  Victorians.  One  looks  in  vain  for  any 
trace  of  his  having  profited  from  Hardy  or  Mere- 
dith, from  Henry  James  or  Rudyard  Kipling  or 
Joseph  Conrad,  or  from  any  one  of  that  splendid 
band  of  Frenchmen  who,  in  recent  years,  have 
raised  the  technique  of  plot  to  the  level  of  a  fine 
art.  There  is  something  about  the  term  "  Early- 
Victorian  "  which  Mr.  De  Morgan  seems  vaguely 
to  resent.  He  protests  that  there  is  no  good 
reason  for  affixing  this  label  to  him  permanently, 
merely  because  the  scenes  of  his  earlier  books  were 
laid  some  fifty  years  ago,  and  that  the  public  is  un- 
just in  finding  fault  with  him  for  choosing  in  his 
later  volumes  either  to  go  back  a  couple  of  cen- 
turies earlier  or  to  come  down  a  generation  or  so 
nearer  to  our  own  time.  Apparently  Mr.  De 
Morgan  has  misunderstood  the  spirit  of  a  good 
deal  of  the  adverse  criticism  that  followed  An 
Affair  of  Dishonor.  The  trouble  was  not  with  the 
supposed  date  of  the  story,  but  with  the  quality 
of  the  achievement  as  a  whole.  It  makes  no  dif- 
ference in  what  century  or  country  the  author  of 
A  Likely  Story  may  choose  to  lay  his  scenes :  he 


34.       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

himself  remains  consistently  Early-Victorian  in 
spirit.  For,  be  it  said  without  offence,  Mr.  De 
Morgan  is,  in  a  mild  sense,  a  literary  anachronism, 
— as,  in  a  slighter  degree,  Du  Maurier  was  be- 
fore him, — and  his  best  work,  the  work  by  which 
he  is  most  likely  to  be  remembered,  is  that  which 
in  time  and  atmosphere  best  harmonizes  with  the 
spirit  in  which  it  is  conceived. 

No  discerning  critic  could  read  Joseph  Vance 
without  saying :  "  Here  we  have  the  work  of  an 
author  who  drives  his  pen  ahead  largely  at  hap- 
hazard* with  only  a  minimum  of  preconception 
to  help  him  out,  and  largely  deriving  his  pleasure 
and  inspiration  from  the  surprises  which  his  char- 
acters every  little  while  persist  in  forcing  upon 
him.  This  is  precisely  the  method  of  the  authors 
of  Vanity  Fair  and  the  Pickwick  Papers;  it  is  a 
method  rendered  well-nigh  obsolete  by  the  require- 
ments of  modern  craftsmanship :  yet  it  is  still  the 
method  of  Mr.  De  Morgan." 

I  asked  him  (records  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas,  one  of  his 
most  indulgent  critics)  what  were  his  methods  of 
work,  and  he  replied  that  his  only  method  was  to  sit 
before  a  piece  of  paper  with  his  pen  in  his  hand — in 
summer  in  Chelsea,  and  in  winter  in  Florence — and 
wait  for  the  words  to  come.  It  sounds  very  simple; 
about  two  thousand  words  a  day  is  his  average,  and 
he  rejects  about  as  much  as  he  keeps.  He  has  a  very 
definite  general  idea  before   him,  but  many  of  the 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       35 

details  surprise  him  as  much  as  they  surprise  the 
reader.  In  other  words,  his  novels,  like  Topsy,  are 
not  born,  but  grow. 

And  here  is  an  even  franker  confession,  recorded 
verbatim  by  Mr.  Bram  Stoker : 

I  make  no  scenario.  I  just  go  on  finding,  as  one 
often  does,  such  inspiration  as  is  necessary  from  my 
pen.  I  find  that  the  mere  holding  of  a  pen  makes 
me  think.  The  pen  even  seems  to  have  some  con- 
sciousness of  its  own.  It  can  certainly  begin  the 
work.  Then  I  forget  all  about  it,  and  go  whitherso- 
ever thought  or  the  characters  lead  me. 

It  is  due,  no  doubt,  to  this  distinctly  amorphous 
quality  of  his  writings  that  Lady  Cecil  remarked 
in  what  another  critic  has  termed  her  "  somewhat 
supercilious  manner,"  that  "  Agreed  as  we  are 
that  Mr.  De  Morgan's  success  is  deserved,  we  are 
yet  more  agreed  that  his  deserved  success  has  had 
very  little  to  do  with  art."  Without  attempting 
to  minimize  Mr.  De  Morgan's  deficiencies,  one 
must  concede  that  so  sweeping  a  judgment  is  un- 
fair. Construction  of  plot  is  not  the  only  ele- 
ment in  fiction  writing  that  requires  art.  There 
is  the  equally  important  art  of  portrait  painting, 
and  in  this  respect  Mr.  De  Morgan  has  achieved 
an  enviable  fame.  He  is  one  of  the  few  writers 
since  Trollope  who  have  been  conspicuously  sue- 


36       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

cessful  in  portraying  convincingly  the  slow  growth 
and  development  of  character  through  a  long  suc- 
cession of  years. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  do  to  overlook 
entirely  Mr.  De  Morgan's  weakness  in  technique, 
on  the  ground  advanced  by  one  of  his  enthusiastic 
champions,  that  he  is  "  one  of  those  authors  who 
are  big  enough  to  break  all  the  rules."  The 
authors  who  are  big  enough  to  break  all  the  rules 
content  themselves  with  breaking  one  or  two  or 
perhaps  half  a  dozen,  and  adhere  all  the  more 
scrupulously  to  the  others,  to  atone  for  the  lib- 
erties they  have  taken.  A  departure  from  rule 
is  vindicated  only  when  the  author  guilty  of  such 
boldness  succeeds  in  obtaining  bigger,  better  re- 
sults than  he  could  have  obtained  in  the  accepted, 
conventional  way.  Otherwise,  the  most  that  may 
be  said  is  that  his  book  is  good,  not  because  of  his 
disregard  of  rules,  but  in  spite  of  it.  And  this 
judgment  applies  in  large  measure  to  Mr.  De 
Morgan. 

Let  us  consider  briefly  what  this  middle-aged 
gentleman  with  the  Early-Victorian  mind  has 
actually  achieved  in  the  seven  years  since  he 
launched  upon  a  tardy  literary  career.  There 
are,  up  to  date,  six  uniform  volumes,  of  portly  and 
imposing  appearance.  No  greater  mistake  can 
be  made  than  to  attempt  to  read  them  hastily ; 
they    are    essentially   designed    for    the    leisurely- 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       37 

minded  reader,  who  can  wait  without  impatience 
until  day  after  to-morrow  or  week  after  next  be- 
fore learning  whom  Lossie  married,  or  whether 
Joseph  proposed  a  second  time  to  Janey,  or  what 
old  Vance  had  saved  so  carefully  in  the  rescued 
package.  The  interest  is  not  in  the  suspense  of 
expectation,  but  in  the  pervading  sense  of  kindly 
optimism,  the  whimsical  humor,  the  author's  own 
obvious  share  in  our  enjoyment  of  each  and  all 
of  his  characters.  Some  of  these  volumes  almost 
defy  an  attempt  to  condense  their  substance  into 
a  brief  paragraph.  Joseph  Vance,  for  instance, 
may  be  baldly  described  as  the  life  history  of  a 
boy,  rescued  almost  from  the  gutter  and  educated 
by  a  kind-hearted  and  cultured  gentleman,  for 
whose  younger  daughter,  five  years  older  than 
himself,  the  boy  conceives  a  romantic  attachment 
that  never  dies  out,  and  that  much  later  in  the 
story  prompts  him  to  take  upon  his  own  shoul- 
ders the  guilt  of  the  girl's  brother,  in  order  to 
spare  her  pain.  But  this  gives  literally  no  idea 
of  the  inimitable  quality  of  this  rare  and  tender 
story,  that  has  made  the  names  of  Christopher 
Vance  and  Dr.  Thorpe,  Violet  and  Lossie,  Jeanie 
and  Janey,  household  words  among  untold  scores 
of  readers.  Or  we  might  try  again  and  tell 
how  this  story  would  never  have  had  a  start  had 
not  Christopher  Vance  tried  to  drown  his  sorrow 
at  losing  his  job,  and  after  absorbing  more  half- 


38       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

pints  of  beer  than  was  discreet,  quarreled  with  a 
"  sweep  "  for  having  "  crocked  a  hinsect,"  lurking 
in  the  bottom  of  the  glass,  and  in  the  fight  that 
ensued,  seriously  injured  his  spine  by  falling 
backward  upon  an  upstanding  brick.  The  sobri- 
ety resulting  from  some  weeks  in  the  hospital ;  an 
illogical  purchase,  from  a  pedlar,  of  a  second-hand 
sign-board,  by  which,  thanks  to  some  alteration 
in  the  name,  he  proclaimed  himself  a  builder  and 
drain-man ;  sudden  trouble  with  the  flues  and  the 
drains  at  the  neighboring  house  of  Dr.  Thorpe, 
and  an  emergency  call  upon  Vance,  who,  despite 
the  sign,  had  never  dug  a  drain  nor  built  a  flue 
in  his  life: — these  are  just  a  few  of  the  initial 
details  that  lead  to  an  acquaintance  between  two 
families  apparently  hopelessly  separated  in  the 
social  scale,  and  open  brilliant  prospects  for  the 
future  of  Vance's  six-year-old  son  Joe.  Yet  this 
method  is  even  less  satisfactory  than  the  other; 
because,  at  this  rate  the  epitome  would  run  to 
several  thousand  words ;  and  even  then  it  would 
fail  to  explain  why  the  heroine,  Lossie,  re- 
mains in  our  thoughts  as  the  embodiment  of  all 
that  is  essentially  feminine  and  good  and  lovable. 
The  secret  of  her  charm  eludes  us :  there  is  no 
single  verbal  description  that  sets  her  plainly  be- 
fore us  with  the  blunt  frankness  of  detail  such  as 
one  finds  in  a  passport.  We  see  her  through  the 
eyes  of  the  men  who  love  her ;  we  see  her  through 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       39 

the  gentle  witchery  of  her  spoken  words,  and 
through  the  influence  she  diffuses  around  her. 
And  perhaps  the  secret  lies  in  this :  that  because 
she  is  surrounded  by  this  sort  of  halo  of  vague- 
ness, each  one  of  us  is  free  to  picture  her  after 
the  fancy  of  his  own  heart. 

Alice-for-SJwrt  is  in  one  sense  a  companion 
piece  to  Joseph  Vance.  This  time,  instead  of  a 
boy,  it  is  a  little  girl  who  is  rescued  from  the  gut- 
ter and  adopted  by  well-to-do  people ;  instead  of 
owing  her  good  luck  to  a  drunken  father,  half 
killed  in  a  fair  fight,  she  receives  her  blessing  in 
disguise  through  the  murder  of  her  drunken 
mother,  whose  husband  completes  his  task  by  com- 
mitting suicide.  Alice,  both  as  a  child  and  later, 
as  she  approaches  maturity,  is  another  of  Mr.  De 
Morgan's  triumphs  in  feminine  portraiture,  a 
worthy  companion  piece  to  Lossie,  yet  not  likely 
to  usurp  the  latter's  rightful  priority  in  the  affec- 
tions of  the  majority  of  readers.  One  feels  that  in 
in  creating  his  first  heroine,  Mr.  De  Morgan  gave 
us  the  best  that  there  was  in  him,  the  favorite  and 
most  perfect  of  his  dream-women;  and  in  subse- 
quent books  he  has  to  content  himself  with  stars 
of  lesser  magnitude, — much  as  Joseph  Vance, 
when  he  found  that  Lossie  was  unattainable,  must 
needs  content  himself  with  Janey.  But  the  real 
reason  why  Alice-for-Short  does  not  wear  quite 
as  well  as  Joseph  Vance,  does  not  tempt  us  back 


40       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

to  it  for  a  second  and  third  reading,  is  because, 
while  still  unmistakably  Early-Victorian,  it  is  not 
of  the  same  sustained  quality.     Those  who  love 
their  Thackeray  may  be  fearlessly  referred  to  Mr. 
De  Morgan's  earliest  book ;  but  Alice-for-Short  is 
largely  diluted  with  Wilkie  Collins, — and  Mr.  De 
Morgan  has  not  assimilated  Collins  so  successfully 
as  he  has  Thackeray.     A  suggestion  of  ghostly 
visitors,  the  skeleton  of  a  young  woman  discov- 
ered in  an  ancient  cellar,  a  whole  history  of  a  for- 
gotten crime  glimpsed  tantalizingly  through  frag- 
mentary   evidence, — all    this    in    itself    is    good 
material  for  a  mystery  tale,  in  which  character 
counts  for  little  and  the  mystery  counts  for  every- 
thing.    It  is  curious  that  an  author  to  whom  his 
personages  are  all  so  supremely  alive,  so  personal, 
so   closely  interwoven  into  his   affections,   should 
not  realize   that  the  public  finds   his   interest   in 
them  contagious,  and  needs  no  melodramatic  hap- 
penings to  hold  its  attention.     Nevertheless,  the 
author  of  Alice-for-Short  deserves   credit   for  a 
most   effective   method   of   finally   unraveling   the 
mystery:  there  is  just  one  person  living  who  holds 
the  key  to  the  vanished  past,  and  she  is  a  frail  old 
woman  of  four  score  and  upwards,  who  for  sixty 
years  has  lived  in  body  only,  her  mind  being  a 
blank.     A    daring    surgical    operation    lifts    the 
cloud  from  her  brain,  and  makes  it  possible  to  fill 
in  the  gaps  of  the  ancient  story,  and  connect  past 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       41 

causes  with  present  consequences.  The  idea,  of 
course,  is  not  new, — for  that  matter,  when  do  we 
ever  run  across  any  plot  in  fiction  that  has  not 
been  used  before?  There  is,  for  instance,  a  close 
parallel  in  that  now  almost  classic  juvenile  story, 
Hans  Brinker,  or  The  Silver  Skates;  and  doubt- 
less a  little  thinking  would  bring  to  mind  a  num- 
ber of  others.  But  one  thing  may  be  said  with 
confidence :  that  no  one  has  ever  surpassed  Mr. 
De  Morgan  in  driving  home  a  sense  of  the  infinite 
tragedy  of  a  woman,  awakening  from  a  sleep  of 
sixty  years,  taking  up  life  at  the  identical  point 
at  which  her  injured  brain  had  ceased  to  record; 
taking  for  granted  that  a  lifetime  of  youth  and 
gladness  and  love  still  lies  before  her,  and  then 
little  by  little  grasping  the  incredible,  inexorable 
fact  that  all  these  treasures  have  slipped  away 
from  her,  that  she  is  old  and  wrinkled  and  hideous, 
a  poor  wreck  of  humanity,  standing  on  the 
threshold  of  death  before  she  has  really  begun  to 
live.  It  is  one  of  those  rare  episodes  that  refuse 
to  be  forgotten;  and  no  critic  does  full  justice  to 
Mr.  De  Morgan  who  fails  to  give  it  a  generous  and 
heartfelt  recognition. 

Having  made  one  story  hinge  upon  the 
suspended  consciousness  of  an  old  woman,  Mr.  De 
Morgan  apparently  told  himself  that  it  would  not 
be  a  bad  idea  to  repeat  the  experiment  by  sub- 
stituting for  the  old  woman  a  young  man,  or  at 


42       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

least  a  man  still  on  the  sunny  side  of  middle  age. 
Some  critics  have  pronounced  Somehow  Good  to 
be  its  author's  crowning  achievement:  the  present 
writer  has  seen  this  claim  advanced  a  number  of 
times,  and  every  time  has  wondered  vainly  on  what 
basis  it  was  made.  To  be  sure,  Somehow  Good  is, 
of  all  six  of  his  novels,  the  one  which  most  nearly 
approaches  a  good  piece  of  construction ;  it  sticks 
most  closely  to  its  central  theme,  it  has  the 
smallest  number  of  superfluous  characters.  It  is 
a  book  which  can  be  summed  up  adequately  in 
a  couple  of  hundred  words.  Some  twenty  years 
before  the  story  opens,  a  certain  young  woman, 
good  enough  at  heart  but  vain  and  rather  head- 
strong, went  out  alone  to  India,  where  her  future 
husband  awaited  her  coming.  Through  a  series 
of  mishaps,  he  failed  to  meet  her  on  her  first  ar- 
rival, and  she  stayed  for  a  time  with  a  married 
friend,  whose  husband's  marriage  vows  lay  all 
too  lightly  on  his  conscience.  Just  what  hap- 
pened during  the  days  spent  under  his  roof  we  are 
never  explicitly  told. — Mr.  De  Morgan  has  re- 
duced reticence  to  a  fine  art.  But  what  hap- 
pened afterward  was  soon  public  property.  Like 
Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,  the  girl  lacked  the 
courage  to  tell  the  truth  before  her  marriage ;  her 
husband,  learning  it  later,  promptly  repudiated 
her  and  sued  for  a  divorce,  but  lost  his  suit  upon 
a  technicality ;  she  returned  to  England,  where  her 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       43 

child  was  born,  and  where  she  continued  to  live 
quietly,  under  an  assumed  name.  Twenty  years 
later,  a  series  of  coincidences  brings  the  husband 
to  her  door.  An  electric  shock,  received  in  the 
London  "  Tuppenny  Tube,"  has  left  no  visible 
physical  injury,  but  has  robbed  him  of  his  mem- 
ory. The  wife,  whom  he  once  discarded  and  now 
does  not  recognize,  takes  him  in ;  he  soon  falls 
in  love  with  her,  and  they  are  remarried,  and  the 
problem  of  the  story  simplifies  itself  to  this  one 
issue:  How  soon  will  the  husband  recover  his 
memory,  and  when  he  does,  what  will  be  his  at- 
titude toward  the  woman  whom  he  once  cast  off? 
It  is  a  theme  full  of  big  possibilities,  and  on  the 
whole  Mr.  De  Morgan  takes  advantage  of  them. 
But  it  rests  on  a  basis  of  coincidence,  and  bristles 
throughout  with  glaring  improbabilities.  If  the 
hero  had  not  chanced  to  meet  in  the  "  Tuppenny 
Tube ';  the  girl  who  was  his  wife's  daughter, 
though  not  his  own;  if  she  had  not  happened  to 
tread  on  his  foot,  and  thus  been  led  into  a  most 
unlikely  conversation  with  a  stranger ;  if  he  had 
not  dropped  a  coin  and  fished  for  it  under  the 
seat,  in  spite  of  the  conductor's  repeated  warn- 
ing; and,  finally,  if  the  young  girl  had  not  obeyed 
a  quixotic  impulse  and  insisted  upon  taking  this 
utter  stranger  to  her  home,  the  story  would  never 
have  happened.  And  as  for  the  second  marriage, 
there  are  two  obstinate  little  facts  that  insist  on 


44      WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

being  remembered ;  first  that,  although  the  woman 
knows  that  she  has  a  right  to  marry,  knows,  in- 
deed, that  no  marriage  ceremony  is  needed,  other 
people  do  not  share  her  knowledge;  they  simply 
know  that  she  was   once  married  and  has  never 
been   legally   divorced.     And,   secondly,   the   hus- 
band, to  whom  the  past  is  a  blank,  admits  that  he 
may  have  been  married  before,  and  is  haunted  with 
a  vague  fear  that,  somewhere  in  the  world,  a  wife 
and  half  a  dozen  children  may  be  in  sore  want 
because  of  his  disappearance.     In  real  life  a  man, 
under  such  conditions,  would  shrink  from  a  mar- 
riage which,  so  far  as  he  knows,  may  mean  bigamy. 
The  people  of  the  story  are  real  enough ;  some  of 
the  minor  characters  are  strokes  of  genius ;  the 
scandal-loving  "  Other  Major,"  for  instance,  with 
his  interminable  "  I  don't  mind  tellin'  you!    Only, 
look  here,  my  dear  boy,  don't  you  go  puttin'  it 
about   that    /   told   you    anythin'.     You   know    I 
make  it  a  rule — a  guidin'  rule — never  to  say  any- 
thin''  ";  and  again,  that  delightfully  literal-minded 
German,  Baron  Kreutzkammer,  who,  when  a  lady 
remarks,  "  How  sweet  the  singing  sounds   under 
the    starlight,"    corrects   her    by    observing,    "  It 
would  sount  the  same  in  the  taydime.     The  fibra- 
tions    are   the    same."     Yes,    the    characters    are 
real,  delightfully  so ;  it  is  what  they  do  at  certain 
crucial  moments   that   fails   to   carry   conviction. 
Yet,  in  justice  to  Mr.  De  Morgan,  it  is  only 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       45 

right  to  add  that  the  foregoing  judgment  of 
Somehow  Good  by  no  means  represents  the  con- 
sensus of  critical  opinion  regarding  its  relative 
importance  among  his  novels.  There  has  been, 
on  the  contrary,  a  strong  tendency  not  merely  to 
recognize  it  as  the  best  of  his  volumes,  but  to  hail 
it  as  a  message  of  good  cheer,  a  piece  of  fine 
optimism  regarding  the  possible  forgiveness  of  an 
erring  wife  and  her  social  rehabilitation,  as  well 
as  that  of  the  innocent  but  nameless  daughter. 
Now,  it  is  true  that  Mr.  De  Morgan  has  suc- 
ceeded in  manufacturing  a  situation,  in  which,  if 
we  grant  him  all  his  conditions  precedent,  his 
amazing  coincidents  and  interventions  of  fate,  it  is 
possible  to  accept  the  final  outcome  as  fairly 
plausible.  But  the  inherent  improbability  of  the 
whole  complex  structure  leaves  upon  the  thought- 
ful mind  much  the  same  impression  as  though  Mr. 
De  Morgan  had  said,  "  Yes,  there  is  just  one 
possible  case  out  of  a  million,  in  which  infidelity 
and  illegitimacy  may  be  condoned ;  but  it  requires 
a  series  of  little  miracles  as  difficult  of  accomplish- 
ment as  that  of  the  camel  and  the  needle's  eye." 

The  next  volume,  in  order  of  time,  It  Never  Can 
Happen  Again,  is  in  point  of  form  a  reversion  to 
Mr.  De  Morgan's  early  manner  in  its  prolixity  of 
style  and  multiplicity  of  themes.  It  has  one  cen- 
tral issue  clearly  emphasized  in  the  title,  but 
requiring  in  the  narrative  itself  some  little  con- 


46       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

scious  effort  to  disinter  it  from  beneath  numerous 
other  overlappings.  The  significance  of  the  title 
is  to  be  found  in  the  well-known  peculiarity  of  the 
English  marriage  law  regarding  a  deceased  wife's 
sister.  Alfred  Challis,  a  successful  young  nov- 
elist, has  defied  public  opinion  by  actually  going 
through  the  marriage  ceremony  with  Marianne, 
who,  although  only  a  half-sister  of  his  deceased 
wife,  comes  so  nearly  within  the  letter  of  the  pro- 
hibited degree,  that  it  is  tacitly  conceded  in  social 
circles  that  she  is  an  "  impossible  person,"  whom 
it  will  not  do  to  receive.  Consequently,  Challis, 
whose  profession  as  a  writer  of  novels  of  high  life 
requires  that  he  shall  mingle  freely  with  the  upper 
circles,  finds  himself  obliged  not  only  to  accept 
invitations  which  ignore  his  wife,  but  to  overlook 
the  slight  thus  put  upon  her  and  to  manufacture 
a  fund  of  conventional  and  formulaic  excuses  for 
her  non-appearance,  which  deceive  neither  himself 
nor  society  at  large.  Now  it  happens  through  a 
curious  series  of  accidents,  which  no  amount  of 
structural  cleverness  can  quite  make  plausible,  that 
Marianne's  deceased  sister  was,  after  all,  not 
Challis's  legal  wife.  The  disclosure  of  this  little 
fact  immediately  makes  Marianne's  social  position 
beyond  reproach,  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  strictest, 
most  conservative  adherents  to  the  Church  of 
England.  The  fact  that  recent  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment have  changed  the  marriage  law  regarding  a 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       47 

deceased  wife's  sister,  furnishes  the  justification 
for  Mr.  De  Morgan's  title.  But  one  wonders 
whether  there  is  not  a  certain  intentional  and  un- 
derlying irony  in  Mr.  De  Morgan's  use  of  the 
phrase ;  because  it  is  impossible  for  any  thought- 
ful person  to  read  this  book  without  realizing 
that  while  the  story  may  not  again  be  duplicated 
in  the  letter,  the  tendency  of  real  life  is  to  dupli- 
cate it  continuously  in  spirit.  Whenever  cir- 
cumstances make  it  possible  for  a  brilliant,  at- 
tractive, and  rather  famous  man  to  be  lionized  by 
fashionable  society,  invited  to  an  unceasing  round 
of  dinners,  receptions,  and  week-end  parties,  while 
his  wife  is  systematically  ignored  by  a  well- 
organized  social  boycott,  the  seeds  of  family  dis- 
cord are  inevitably  sown ;  and  when, — as  is  almost 
sure  to  happen  sooner  or  later, — such  a  man  en- 
counters some  young  woman  who  chooses  to  pity 
him  and  give  him  her  sympathy,  the  seeds  of  dis- 
cord take  root  and  sprout  with  amazing  fertility. 
One  cannot  read  this  book  without  being  once 
again  impressed  with  Mr.  De  Morgan's  ability  to 
demonstrate  the  importance  of  little  things,  to 
show  us  how  the  first  vague  doubts  and  discords 
germinate  and  grow;  and  how,  not  only  for  the 
people  in  this  story,  but  for  every  one  of  us,  there 
is  at  each  hour  of  the  day  a  choice  of  actions  that 
apparently  matters  little,  but  that  actually  may 
make  a  vital  and  life-long  difference.     It  Never 


48      WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

Can  Happen  Again  is  essentially  a  wise  book,  and 
its  chief  wisdom  lies  in  proving  that  while  we  may 
learn  to  be  independent  of  fate  in  large  matters 
and  rise  superior  to  the  big  fluctuations  of  success 
and  failure,  we  can  never  escape  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  gnat-like  swarms  of  trivial  circumstances. 
The  hackneyed  phrase,  "  crowded  canvas," 
seems  curiously  inadequate  to  describe  the  al- 
most unwieldy  mass  of  social  portraiture  in  this 
volume,  its  spacious  and  kaleidoscopic  pictures  of 
English  life  that  constantly  fade  into  a  blur  of 
dim  vistas,  along  thronging  thoroughfares  and 
down  crowded  and  ofttimes  unsavory  alleys. 
Whatever  underlying  purpose  Nature  may  have 
in  her  working-out  of  life,  the  pattern  is  too  vast 
for  human  comprehension  to  grasp.  In  our 
actual,  daily  experience,  much  that  vitally  con- 
cerns us  seems  hopelessly  haphazard.  In  Mr.  De 
Morgan's  lack  of  art,  or  perhaps  it  is  fairer  to 
say,  his  deliberate  intent  to  ignore  art,  there  is 
at  times  a  certain  resultant  realism  that  by  its 
very  disorder  and  lack  of  plotting  approximates 
more  closely  to  the  truth  of  actuality  than  any 
amount  of  minute  and  purposed  planning  can  ever 
come.  It  is  a  dangerous  method ;  carried  too  far 
and  too  boldly,  it  leads  to  artistic  anarchy.  Yet 
sometimes,  as  in  this  particular  book  of  Mr.  De 
Morgan's,  it  achieves  results  that  could  hardly  be 
gained  in  any  other  way. 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       49 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  leave  this  volume  with- 
out a  passing  word  of  tribute  to  an  interwoven 
thread  of  interest,  second  only  to  the  main  issue 
of  the  story :  namely,  the  pathetic  love  of  the 
blind  beggar,  Jim  Coupland,  for  his  little  six-year 
daughter,  Lizarann,  and  the  details  of  their  life 
of  poverty  in  the  unsavory  cul-de-sac  known  as 
Tallack  Street.  It  may  be  freely  conceded  that 
in  drawing  certain  humble  and  needy,  yet  none  the 
less  lovable  types  of  Cockney,  Mr.  De  Morgan 
stands  to-day  almost  without  a  rival;  and  Lizar- 
ann, with  her  precocious  wisdom  and  patient 
bravery,  and  Jim,  the  father,  a  hopeless  wreck  in 
early  manhood,  with  nothing  to  hold  him  to  life 
but  his  memories  of  the  wife  he  has  lost,  and  his 
fears  for  the  child  whose  face  he  will  never  see, — ■ 
these  characters  somehow  fasten  themselves  so 
closely  upon  our  hearts  that,  at  least  while  we 
read,  we  forget  to  ask  whether  Mr.  De  Morgan 
can  construct  well  or  ill,  and  think  of  him  only 
in  sheer  gratitude  for  his  possession  of  the  magic 
touch  that  makes  us  feel  the  kinship  of  humbler 
humanity. 

There  remain  two  recent  volumes,  An  Affair  of 
Dishonor  and  A  Likely  Story,  both  of  which  may 
be  dismissed  quite  briefly,  as  not  belonging  in  the 
same  class  with  Mr.  De  Morgan's  earlier  work. 
The  fault  with  An  Affair  of  Dishonor  is,  as  al- 
ready   suggested,    not    that    it    is    an    historical 


50       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

novel,  but  that,  as  such,  it  lacks  distinction.  In 
volumes  like  Joseph  Vance  and  Alice-for-Short 
and  It  Never  Can  Happen  Again  he  produced 
work  of  a  unique  quality ;  whether  we  like  them  or 
not,  we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  that  they  are 
sui  generis,  that  they  cannot  even  have  successful 
imitators.  To  have  been  equally  successful  in  the 
vein  of  historical  romance,  Mr.  De  Morgan  would 
have  had  to  produce  a  volume  similar  in  magnitude 
to  Maurice  Hewlett's  Richard-Yea-and-Nay,  or 
Alfred  Ollivant's  The  Gentleman.  Instead,  he 
was  content  to  write  a  book  which,  in  manner  and 
in  substance,  is  easily  outrivaled  by  the  work  of 
a  dozen  present-day  writers,  ranging  from  Conan 
Doyle  to  Max  Pemberton.  An  Affair  of  Dishonor 
puts  the  heaviest  tax  upon  our  credulity  of  any  of 
Mr.  De  Morgan's  novels.  It  asks  us  to  believe  that 
after  a  young  man  has  so  far  violated  the  laws 
of  hospitality  as  to  abduct  his  host's  daughter, 
and  is  challenged  by  the  outraged  father,  furi- 
ously determined  upon  avenging  her  lost  honor, 
he  adds  the  father's  death  to  his  earlier  crime, 
and  so  skilfully  keeps  the  truth  from  the  girl  that 
for  long  months  she  continues  to  live  with  him, 
wondering,  though  not  too  curiously,  why  her 
father  does  not  write  that  he  forgives  her,  and 
why  no  news  of  any  kind  comes  from  him.  Of 
course,  in  the  days  before  the  advent  of  railways 
and  telegrams,  news  traveled  slowly ;  in  those  days 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       51 

also  human  life  was  comparatively  cheap,  and  a 
man's  disappearance  did  not  provoke  the  hue  and 
cry,  was  not  proclaimed  in  the  flaunting  headlines, 
that  would  follow  to-day.  None  the  less,  even  in 
what  Mr.  De  Morgan  has  defined  as  "  Pre-Crom- 
wellian "  times,  it  required  an  extraordinary 
number  of  coincidences  and  interventions  of  fate  to 
keep  the  heroine  unenlightened ;  and  after  all,  the 
whole  theme  is  so  unsavory  and  so  artificial,  that 
the  reader  is  well  justified  in  asking:  Was  it 
worth  while? 

Mr.  De  Morgan  takes  much  credit  to  himself 
that  A  Likely  Story  has  been  boiled  down  to  the 
conventional  length  of  the  average  English  novel. 
Frankly,  however,  he  is  not  entitled  to  credit,  be- 
cause the  theme  is  so  slight  that  it  scarcely  merits 
ampler  treatment  than  that  of  a  short  story.  A 
sixteenth  century  Italian  portrait  is  in  an  artist's 
studio,  for  the  purpose  of  repairs,  and  happens 
to  witness, — if  one  may  use  the  phrase  regarding 
an  inanimate  object, — a  certain  scene  between  the 
artist  and  a  servant  girl,  Sairah,  and  also  the 
quarrel  between  the  artist  and  his  wife  about  this 
same  servant,  which  leads  to  a  separation  and  a 
hint  at  divorce.  Now  this  picture  is  quite  a  re- 
markable one,  and  one  evening  when  a  certain 
imaginative  little  old  gentleman  is  facing  it,  and 
dreaming  over  the  fitful  blaze  of  a  wood  fire,  he 
finds    himself   listening   to    an   astonishing   story 


52       WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

which  the  lips  of  this  portrait  tell  him,  a  story  of 
jealousy  and  cruelty  and  revenge  enacted  centuries 
earlier  in  Italy.  Incidentally,  the  portrait  tells  of 
the  foolish  quarrel  between  the  artist  and  his  wife, 
and  expresses  a  wish  to  reconcile  them.  So  the 
little  old  gentleman,  not  quite  knowing  whether 
the  portrait's  story  is  a  dream  or  an  actuality,  is 
instrumental  in  having  a  photograph  of  the  pic- 
ture sent  to  the  artist's  wife;  and  she,  in  turn, 
holding  the  photograph  between  herself  and  the 
firelight,  hears  the  self -same  story  from  the  lips  of 
the  photograph,  and  knows  that  her  husband  was 
wrongly  blamed.  It  is  an  amusing  story,  but  one 
impossible  to  take  seriously.  It  would  almost 
seem  as  though  its  author  were  deliberately  per- 
petrating a  joke  upon  the  public. 

In  conclusion,  it  remains  only  to  be  said  that, 
if  we  regard  these  six  books  without  bias,  refusing 
to  be  influenced  either  by  prejudice  or  partisan- 
ship, they  show,  with  the  one  exception  of  It  Never 
Can  Happen  Again,  a  steady  deterioration.  Each 
of  Mr.  De  Morgan's  volumes  has  its  own  cham- 
pions, and  naturally  the  critic  who  cares  for  good 
technique  will  feel  more  kindly  toward  the  later 
volumes,  which  show  a  gain  in  that  direction.  But 
he  should  be  taken,  not  for  what  he  might  have 
been,  but  for  what  he  is.  As  Mr.  Boynton  has 
aptly  phrased  it,  he  has  "  more  in  common  with 
Dr.  Holmes  than  with  Mr.  Pinero."    For  more  than 


WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN       53 

half  a  century  he  has  been  studying  people,  ab- 
sorbing life,  formulating  his  own  philosophy ; 
through  all  these  years,  his  thoughts  have  been 
slowly  ripening,  like  a  rare  old  wine.  And  when 
he  first  brought  them  forth,  in  Joseph  Vance,  he 
served  them,  like  a  rare  old  wine,  in  the  old  bottle, 
— his  manner  harmonized  with  his  matter.  Alice- 
for-Short  was  still  from  the  same  old  vintage, 
but  blended  with  another,  less  full-bodied  stock. 
And  after  that,  one  feels  with  each  successive 
volume,  that  the  supply  in  the  bin  is  running  low ; 
it  has  to  be  diluted  with  a  younger  wine  that  has 
not  had  time  to  mature.  For  there  is  always  one 
saddening  little  fact  about  those  rare  old  vintages, 
— there  is  so  very,  very  little  of  them  to  be  had. 
But  let  no  one  assume  that  this  is  said  in  a  spirit 
of  ingratitude.  Had  Mr.  De  Morgan  never  writ- 
ten another  line  after  Joseph  Vance,  his  fame 
would  still  rest  on  an  assured  foundation.  No 
future  success  or  failure  can  amplify  or  diminish 
its  fair  fame.  And  even  though  it  be  an  an- 
achronism, we  of  the  twentieth  century  should  be 
the  more  grateful,  since  it  enables  us  to  claim  for 
ourselves  the  honor  which,  in  point  of  form  and 
substance,  would  otherwise  have  belonged  to  the 
nineteenth. 


MAURICE  HEWLETT 

Theke  are  some  authors  whose  good  fortune  it  is 
to  go  steadily  forward  along  a  fairly  straight  and 
evenly  ascending  path  year  by  year,  fulfilling  the 
promise  which  it  required  no  great  critical  insight 
to  discover  in  their  earlier  works  nor  great  bold- 
ness to  point  out.  There  are  others  who,  possessed 
it  may  be  of  even  greater  gifts,  but  erratic  and  un- 
even in  workmanship,  follow  a  tortuous  route,  full 
of  unexpected  turnings  and  retraced  steps.  No 
sooner  has  literary  dogmatism  ventured  to  assign 
them  a  definite  place  in  the  current  movement  than 
they  riot  off  on  some  tangent  pathway,  hotly  chas- 
ing some  new  bubble  of  reputation.  Mr.  Maurice 
Hewlett  serves  admirably  as  a  case  in  point.  To- 
day it  would  seem  incongruous  to  bracket  his 
name  with  those  of  Rudyard  Kipling  and  Joseph 
Conrad,  as  pioneers  in  a  new  movement  in  fiction. 
The  Kipling  of  Rewards  and  Fairies,  the  Conrad 
of  bombs  and  nihilism  and  secret  service,  the  new 
Hewlett,  the  would-be  Meredithian,  have  drifted 
too  hopelessly  apart.  Yet  there  was  a  short  pe- 
riod, less  than  a  decade  ago,  when,  in  spite  of  wide 
differences  in  theme,  in  treatment  and  in  outlook 

54 


MAURICE  HEWLETT 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  55 

upon  life,  the  respective  authors  of  Kim  and  Nos- 
tromo  and  Richard  Yea-and-Nay  seemed  to  form 
a  little  group  apart  from  their  contemporaries. 
And  the  kinship  between  them  lay  not  merely  in  a 
certain  dynamic  quality  of  words,  an  ability  to 
wring  new  and  subtle  meanings  out  of  old  and  well- 
worn  forms  of  speech,  a  trick  of  making  you  see, 
behind  and  beyond  the  printed  page,  a  lengthening 
vista  of  thoughts  unspoken,  oftentimes  unspeak- 
able. It  was  something  that  went  deeper  than 
all  this  and  that  showed  itself  in  an  epic  bigness  of 
theme,  an  irrepressible  virility  of  thought,  an  au- 
dacious iconoclasm  of  precedent,  overriding  and 
bearing  down  established  principles  of  technique, 
and  justifying  the  lawlessness  by  the  results. 
Dangerous  models  they  all  three  were,  for  the 
slavish  imitator  of  small  mentality.  But  there 
was  a  rich  fund  of  new  artifice  to  be  acquired  from 
each  of  them,  by  those  who  had  the  eyes  to  see  and 
the  ability  to  apply. 

Of  the  three,  Mr.  Hewlett  had,  it  would  seem,  by 
far  the  hardest  road  to  travel  and  under  the  heav- 
iest handicap,  if  he  was  to  stir  us  to  a  tingling 
sense  of  reality.  Kipling  in  India,  Conrad  in 
Africa  and  the  South  Sea  Islands,  could  freely 
let  their  pens  run  riot  in  pyrotechnic  outbursts 
of  local  color;  life  in  all  its  primeval  crudity, 
the  raw,  unmixed  materials  of  fiction,  lay  on  every 
side  of  them,  barbarism  and  civilization  in  all  de- 


56  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

grees  of  transition ;  they  had  but  to  paint  what 
they  saw,  and  could  scarcely  keep  pace  with  the 
tropical  luxuriance  around  them.  Their  pictures 
carried  overwhelming  conviction  because  of  the 
white  heat  of  first-hand  impressions,  the  unmis- 
takable poignancy  of  a  chose  vecue.  Mr.  Hew- 
lett's stories,  on  the  contrary, — at  least  down  to 
the  point  when,  with  Halfway  House,  he  tempo- 
rarily went  grievously  astray, — are  largely  of  the 
stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of;  they  tell  of  scenes 
and  of  people  that  he  has  never  visited,  save 
through  the  medium  of  musty  volumes  and  faded 
frescos ;  because  the  scenes  of  his  stories,  or  at 
least  of  such  as  it  is  a  delight  to  remember,  are 
the  world  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  the  Renaissance, 
and  his  heroes  and  heroines  are  men  and  women 
whose  hearts  have  been  for  centuries  a  handful  of 
dust.  And  yet,  such  is  the  magic  thrall  that  he 
succeeds  in  throwing  over  his  readers  that,  when 
still  hot  and  breathless  from  a  swift,  tumultuous 
reading  of  Richard  Yea-and-Nay  or  The  Queen's 
Quair,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  fling  down  the 
gauntlet  and  challenge  all  comers  to  deny  that  it 
is  Maurice  Hewlett,  rather  than  Joseph  Conrad 
or  Rudyard  Kipling,  who  excels  in  picturing  the 
tumultuous  joys  and- sorrows  of  life. 

Here  is  obviously  something  of  a  paradox,  which 
clamors  for  an  explanation.  How  has  such  an 
obviously   bookish   person,    a    literary    dilettante, 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  57 

with  the  erudition  of  an  archeologist,  and  a  pre- 
ciosity of  style  that  he  has  nurtured  as  one  might 
nurture  a  rare  orchid,  learned  to  galvanize  dead 
bones  and  moldering  dust  into  an  anguished 
quiver  of  pain  and  pleasure?  His  very  language, 
vocabulary,  style  and  rhythm  are  redolent  of  the 
night  lamp  and  the  study  table;  often  he  uses 
phrases  like  fine  embroidery,  traceries  and  scroll- 
work in  an  architecture  of  words.  Tapestry  Novel 
is  a  term  that  was  first  coined  to  fit  the  class  of 
books  represented  by  The  Forest  Lovers;  and  it 
admirably  expressed  the  impression  conveyed  of  an 
almost  feminine  delicacy  of  workmanship,  as 
though  each  phrase  were  a  separate  knot  carefully 
chosen  and  tied  and  trimmed,  in  the  slow,  laborious 
progress  of  the  woven  picture.  And  the  perennial 
wonder  of  Mr.  Hewlett's  art  centers  in  his  power 
of  reincarnation,  his  ability  to  show  us  knights  and 
ladies  of  olden  times,  who  have  so  obviously  just 
trooped  forth  from  dim  and  crumbling  hangings, 
suddenly  flushing  into  the  warmth  of  life  and 
youth  and  riotous  passion.  Undeniably,  he 
achieves  his  effects.  The  chief  distinction  which 
marks  his  volumes  as  something  apart,  something 
differing  both  in  quality  and  in  kind  from  the  cur- 
rent mass  of  so-called  historical  fiction,  is  his  in- 
imitable trick  of  breathing  the  breath  of  life  into 
the  famous  figure-heads  of  history ;  making  you 
feel  the  human  pulse-beat  still  throbbing  under  the 


58  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

yellowed  page  and  faded  writing  of  musty  chron- 
icles ;  discovering  in  cracked  and  time-dimmed  por- 
traits some  trick  of  the  glance,  some  luring  curve 
of  lips,  some  coquetry  of  dress  or  ornament  that 
makes  the  human  frailty  of  these  long  dead  women 
a  living  thing,  to  touch  us  with  a  personal  appeal. 
A  war  that  cost  the  flower  of  the  land,  a  battle  that 
changed  the  map  of  Europe,  interest  Mr.  Hewlett 
merely  as  clues  to  the  hearts  of  men  and  women  in 
high  places,  whose  whim  begot  the  strife.     And 
because  he  possesses  this  magic  power  of  visualizing 
the  pomps  and  pageantries,  the  revelries  and  the 
bloodshed  of  those  dim  and  far-off  times,  reading 
whole   histories   from   a   faded   fresco   or   a   rust- 
stained  coat-of-mail,  it  is  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  to  conclude  that  Mr.  Hewlett  must 
love  for  their  own  sakes  these  relics  of  the  past 
that  give  him  his  material : — that  he  must  never  be 
so  happy   as   when   roaming   through  dismantled 
palaces    and    venerable    abbeys,    museums    of   old 
paintings,  old  furniture,  old  armor.     Such  is  the 
mental  picture  that,  on  the  evidence  of  his  nov- 
els, one  is  quite  likely  to  form  of  Mr.  Hewlett's 
tastes  and  pastimes:  and  yet,  as  he  has  elsewhere 
taken  pains  to  tell  us,  nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  truth. 

Somewhere  in  the  pages  of  The  Road  in  Tus- 
cany, Mr.  Hewlett,  having  occasion  to  quote  from 
Villani's  History  of  Florence,  tersely  dismisses  it 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  59 

as  "  a  charming  story,  which  gives  us  as  much  in- 
sight into  the  good  Villani  as  into  Florentine  be- 
ginnings." This  is  an  apt  phrase,  and  one  worth 
clinging  to  and  making  over,  to  fit  the  coiner  of  it ; 
for  The  Road  in  Tuscany  is  also  one  of  those  rare 
books  possessing  charm,  and  one  which  gives  no 
less  insight  into  Mr.  Hewlett  himself  than  into  the 
hearts  of  all  the  dead  and  living  Tuscans  about 
whom  he  writes  so  understandingly.  Indeed,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  when  the  time  comes 
to  judge  the  life-work  of  Maurice  Hewlett  in  its 
entirety,  The  Road  in  Tuscany  will  stand  with  The 
Queen's  Quair,  as  one  of  the  two  volumes  which  his 
future  biographer  cannot  afford  to  neglect ;  the 
one,  because  it  is  the  crowning  achievement  of  a 
unique  method  in  historical  romance;  the  other, 
because  it  gives  the  key  to  the  peculiar  workings 
of  the  mind  which  wrought  that  method. 

It  teaches  us,  for  instance,  that  as  a  matter  of 
fact  Mr.  Hewlett  has  scant  interest  in  ancient  mon- 
uments, churches,  palaces,  the  works  of  men's 
hands,  excepting  as  clues  to  the  men  themselves ; 
and  that,  unless  it  be  a  locomotive  drawing  a 
train  of  cars,  there  is  scarcely  anything  towards 
which  he  feels  a  stronger  hostility  than  an  art  gal- 
lery. The  greatest  of  galleries,  not  excepting  the 
Uffizi  itself,  are  nothing  more  than  "  so  many 
leagues   of  imprisoned   pictures   torn   from   their 


60  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

sometime  homes  and  flowering-places,  and  pinned 
to  the  walls.  .  .  .  They  belong  to  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  and  here  they  are  brazening  it  out,  like 
tavern  signs  !  "  And  not  only  art,  but  history  and 
literature  as  well,  interest  him  chiefly  as  means  to 
an  end,  "  short  cuts  to  the  human  heart,"  whether 
in  Italy  or  out  of  it ;  while  "  to  talk  of  a  history 
of  Tuscany  is  to  talk  nonsense."  The  most  he 
will  concede  to  any  of  the  Tuscan  towns  is  "  a 
biography  which  is  the  sum  of  all  the  biographies 
of  all  its  unknown  citizens."  These  worthy  burgh- 
ers and  thrifty  housewives,  the  Donna  Bertas  and 
Ser  Martinos  of  proverbial  speech,  are  more  to 
him  than  all  the  poets  and  painters  that  Italy  can 
boast.  "  Learn,"  he  preaches,  "  to  look  upon 
cities,  great  buildings,  pompous  monuments,  gilded 
altar-pieces,  carved  Madonnas,  as  so  much  har- 
vest for  the  eye,  neither  the  best  nor  the  worst. 
The  best  is  a  wise  man  or  a  pretty  woman,  the 
worst  a  railway  or  a  bore.  There  is  plenty  of 
room  between  these  extremes  for  altar-pieces." 
Yes,  man  delights  Mr.  Hewlett ;  aye,  and 
woman  too,  a  pretty  woman  especially,  and 
smilingly  he  confesses  it.  He  will  at  any  time 
interrupt  himself,  in  the  midst  of  more  important 
matters,  to  show  you  a  girl  in  a  window,  "  leaning 
her  bare  arms  there  and  crying  strangely  inti- 
mate matter  to  another  across  two  streets,  singing 
the  pretty  names  of  things  not  pretty,  caressing 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  61 

her  friend  from  afar."  And  at  a  turn  of  the  page, 
3rou  will  find  him  chatting  with  equal  relish  and 
equal  intimate  assurance,  of  Dante's  Beatrice,  no 
symbol  of  theology  in  his  eyes,  but  a  real,  living 
woman,  with  a  personal  and  physical  appeal,  a 
woman  capable  of  love  and  of  jealousy  too.  "  Who 
she  was  or  what  is  no  matter.  .  .  .  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  be  sure  that  she  was  lovely  and  good,  had 
green  eyes  and  died  young.  To  which  I  add  for 
my  private  contentation, — that  she  was  a  little 
woman." 

There  in  a  single  brief  quotation, — indeed,  in 
the  five  short  words  that  make  up  the  tag-end  of 
it,  "  she  was  a  little  woman," — we  have  the  key  to 
some  of  Mr.  Hewlett's  strongest  effects,  the  clue 
to  his  gift  for  making  vanished  centuries  live  again, 
and  to  his  failure  to  picture  the  life  of  to-day 
convincingly.  The  secret,  of  course,  lies  in  the 
trick  of  the  small,  familiar  touch,  the  trick  of 
throwing  in  some  detail  that  helps  us  to  see,  by 
appealing  to  our  own  personal  experience.  An 
author  may  be  taking  you  through  the  strange, 
tortuous  by-ways  of  some  oriental  city,  dazzling 
and  bewildering  you  with  a  medley  of  colors,  scents 
and  sounds,  and  then  suddenly  add  the  soothing, 
commonplace  detail,  "  it  was  a  gray  morning  and 
the  streets  were  muddy."  It  tells  you  nothing  of 
real  moment  regarding  the  strange  city,  yet  it 
gives  you  at  once  a  sense  of  seeing  more  clearly,  for 


62  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

it  conjures  up  other  gray  days  when  you  yourself 
have  strayed  through  muddy  streets  in  unfamiliar 
towns,  and  seen  odd  buildings  silhouetted  against 
the  leaden  sky.     Of  course  it  is  a  trick,  albeit  an 
unconscious  one,  serving  to  bridge  the  gulf  of  time 
and  space,  and  delude  us  into  believing,  for  the 
moment,  that  we  too  can  clearly  visualize  the  un- 
known.   In  the  use  of  this  trick  Mr.  Hewlett  is  an 
adept ;  and  the  reason  why  his  use  of  it  is  mar- 
velously  effective  in  a  story  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, and  comparatively  ineffective  in  a  story  of 
the  twentieth,  is  fairly  simple  to  explain.     The 
familiar  touch  is  really  a  makeshift,  an  attempt  to 
find  some  common  measure  for  things  really  incom- 
mensurate, to  help  us  to  form  an  approximate  pic- 
ture of  something  unseen.     It  ceases  to  be  of  help 
in  a  description  of  things  within  our  own  intimate 
experience.     To  mention  that  a  certain  thing  hap- 
pened on  Wednesday,  or  that  yesterday  morning 
the  first  strawberries  were  in  market,  immediately 
makes  a  remote  and  fantastic  setting  tingle  with 
actuality ;  whereas,  in  a  story  laid  in  our  town  and 
day  it  is  merely  one  added  detail  that  merges  into 
the  rest.    If  you  tell  a  child,  who  has  never  visited 
a  menagerie,  that  an  elephant  is  a  big  animal  with 
a  long  nose,  you  give  him  something  for  his  imagi- 
nation to  work  upon;  he  may  not  really  picture 
anything  within  a  thousand  miles  of  an  elephant, 
but  the  important  point  is  that  he  thinks  he  does. 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  63 

But  if  you  tell  him  that  a  cat  is  a  furry  animal  with 
prickly  feet,  you  may,  to  be  sure,  evoke  a  memory 
of  past  discomfort,  but  the  familiar  touch  has 
failed  to  give  him  any  sense  of  new  knowledge.  And 
there  is  one  more  equally  important  distinction 
that,  helps  to  throw  light  upon  Mr.  Hewlett:  we 
might,  in  describing  an  elephant,  make  several 
blunders,  but  they  would  not  prevent  the  child's 
imagination  from  seizing  upon  the  detail  of  the 
long  nose ;  but  if  we  chanced  to  be  inaccurate  re- 
garding the  cat,  the  one  familiar  touch,  the  prickly 
feet,  would  serve  only  to  make  our  errors  stand 
out  more  glaringly. 

It  is  a  matter  of  instinct, — and  a  true  one, — 
with  most  of  us,  to  feel,  as  we  look  at  old-time  por- 
traits, Rembrandt's  men,  Botticelli's  women,  that 
there  is  a  remoteness  about  them  not  wholly  due  to 
quaint  costumes  and  faded  pigments,  but  far  more 
vitally  to  a  physical  and  temperamental  difference, 
shown  in  an  alien  cast  of  features,  a  different  arch 
of  brow  and  contour  of  cheek  and  chin.  We  won- 
der how  men  and  women  so  different  from  the  mod- 
ern type  would  meet  the  emergencies  of  life,  and 
whether  in  their  hopes  and  fears,  their  loves  and 
hatreds  there  was  not  an  element  with  which  we 
would  find  ourselves  out  of  sympathy.  Mr.  Hew- 
lett solves  this  difficulty  with  the  calmness  of  omnis- 
cience. He  brushes  aside  the  differences  as  though 
they  were  non-existent.      Human  nature,  he  seems 


64  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

to  say,  is  a  constant  quantity,  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  forever.  He  makes  his  men  and 
women,  of  whatever  nationality  and  epoch,  speak 
and  act  from  big,  basic,  primitive  emotions,  shows 
them  to  us  as  strong,  simple,  ardent  souls,  dom- 
inated by  some  one  ruling  passion,  symbolic  of 
some  single  vice  or  virtue.  They  live  fierce,  tu- 
multuous lives,  in  fierce,  tumultuous  times ;  and 
because  they  and  their  epoch  lie  outside  of 
our  experience,  we  yield  to  Mr.  Hewlett's  hyp- 
notic power  and  give  him  credence,  especially 
when  he  adroitly  reminds  us  by  his  small,  familiar 
touches,  that  his  King  Richard  and  his  Queen 
Mary  are  at  heart  just  human  beings,  like  the  man 
next  door,  or  the  girl  across  the  street.  But  when 
he  leaves  the  vantage-ground  of  the  remote  past 
and  ventures  to  show  us  fantastic  figures,  crea- 
tures of  legendary  romance,  in  modern  garb, 
against  the  incongruous  background  of  present- 
day  England,  no  amount  of  familiar  touches  can 
gloss  over  the  glaring,  blatant  unfamiliarity  of 
his  picture  as  a  whole.  And  this  is  why,  with  all 
his  art,  Mr.  Hewlett's  modern  stories  refuse  to 
be  alive. 

But  since  Mr.  Hewlett's  blunders  have  been  few 
and  his  triumphs  many,  it  will  be  no  more  than  a 
matter  of  simple  justice  to  touch  only  cursorily 
upon  his  modern  trilogy,  and  to  linger  in  the  sin- 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  65 

cerest  admiration  over  certain  unchallenged  and 
incomparable  masterpieces.  His  earliest  volumes, 
Earthwork  out  of  Tuscany  and  The  Forest  Lovers, 
need  not  detain  us.  They  were  enough  for  the 
founding  of  a  reputation,  a  challenge  for  the 
world's  attention  that  could  not  be  ignored,  an 
earnest  of  better  and  bigger  things  to  come.  In 
the  former  of  these  two  volumes,  the  author  re- 
vealed the  country  of  his  predilection,  the  setting 
of  what  we  must  recognize  as  the  volumes  that  he 
has  written  most  directly  from  his  heart.  In  The 
Forest  Lovers,  he  allowed  himself,  more  than  any- 
where else,  to  riot  at  will  in  the  realm  of  pure  fan- 
tasy, to  create  an  imaginary  world  peopled  by  men 
and  women  of  Arthurian  legend.  The  story  of 
Prosper  le  Gai  and  how  he  wed  Iseulte  la  Desi- 
reuse,  reputed  witch  though  she  was,  to  save  her 
from  the  hangman,  and  all  the  delicate  and  charm- 
ing idyl  that  follows,  is  wrought  with  a  rare  and 
welcome  artistry.  It  revealed  the  author  as  a 
stylist  of  a  new  order,  with  a  delicate  sense  of 
prose  rhythm,  and  a  reverence  for  the  value 
of  words  akin  to  that  of  a  jeweler  for  the  value  of 
precious  stones.  Not  that  he  fully  mastered  in 
these  earliest  volumes  the  style  for  which  he  strove. 
A  lack  of  smoothness,  here  and  there,  an  occasional 
archaism  so  violent  as  to  be  almost  grotesque,  be- 
trayed the  labor  of  his  art  to  conceal  itself.  But 
it  paved  the  way  to  greater  mastery.     It  formed 


6G  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

the  apprenticeship  that  led  to  the  fuller  fruition  of 
Richard  Yea-and-Nay. 

The  term  "  historical  novel  "  has  been  so  often 
profaned  that  one  instinctively  shrinks  from  ap- 
plying it  to  such  noble  pieces  of  literary  art  as 
Mr.  Hewlett  has  given  us  in  his  two  biggest  novels, 
Richard  Yea-and-Nay  and  The  Queen's  Quair. 
Yet  what  alternative  name  is  there  to  give  to  vol- 
umes that  picture  historic  scenes  and  royal  per- 
sonages with  such  rare  vividness  and  power?  With 
the  epoch  of  the  Crusades  for  its  stage  setting, 
and  the  figure  of  the  Lion-Hearted  King  for  its 
focus  of  interest,  the  historic  aspect  of  Richard 
Yea-and-Nay  refuses  to  be  ignored.  Yet  no 
amount  of  careful  documentation,  no  degree  of 
fidelity  to  early  chronicles,  of  painstaking  accu- 
racy in  mere  names  and  dates  could  have  created 
that  atmosphere  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  which 
every  page  is  redolent.  The  truth  is  that  Mr. 
Hewlett  is  at  heart  a  poet,  with  all  a  poet's  de- 
light in  verbal  form  and  color,  in  the  caressing 
assonance  of  fluent  syllables,  the  rise  and  fall  of 
cadenced  sentences.  His  Richard  Yea-and-Nay 
is  really  a  sort  of  medieval  epic,  a  chanson  de 
geste  in  prose,  full  of  the  sensuous  word-coloring 
of  jongleur  and  troubadour,  the  spectacular  opu- 
lence of  tourneys  and  coronations,  the  valor  of 
battle  and  of  siege.  Considered  as  a  study  of  hu- 
man emotions,  however,  the  book  is  essentially  mod- 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  67 

era  in  its  appeal,  thanks  to  that  habit  of  mind 
already  alluded  to,  which  makes  Mr.  Hewlett  rep- 
resent human  nature  as  essentially  the  same  at  all 
epochs.  And  that  his  interest  in  the  psychological 
side  of  his  story  is  far  keener  than  in  the  more 
spectacular  brilliance  of  his  picture,  he  himself 
sets  forth  in  unmistakable  terms : 

Differing  from  the  Mantuan  as  much  in  sort  as  in 
degree,  I  sing  less  the  arms  than  the  man,  less  the 
panoply  of  some  Christian  king  offended  than  the 
heart  of  one  in  its  urgent  private  transports; 

and  to  such  good  purpose  does  he  sing  the  man 
that  the  varying  fortunes  of  war,  the  downfall  or 
the  victory  of  Saracens,  the  fate  of  Christendom 
itself  become  for  the  hour  a  matter  of  less  moment 
than  the  inner  conflicts  of  the  heart  of  King  Rich- 
ard,— Count  Richard  he  is  when  we  first  meet 
him, — and  his  love  for  Jehane  Saint-Pol,  Jehane  of 
the  Fair  Girdle.  They  are  a  noble  pair,  as  Mr. 
Hewlett  has  conceived  them,  tragic  figures  caught 
in  the  toils  of  destiny,  very  real,  thanks  to  a  rare 
artistry  of  words  yet  unimaginable  outside  their 
special  setting  of  time  and  place.  It  is  impossible 
in  a  brief  epitome  to  do  even  scant  justice  to  the 
intimate  drama  enacted  between  these  two.  It  is 
the  chronicle  of  a  woman's  utter  self-abnegation, 
her  sacrifice  of  love,  of  honor,  personal  liberty  and 


68  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

the  rights  of  her  child,  for  the  sake  of  the  man  who 
has  awakened  her  to  the  j  oy  of  living. 

She  was  the  creature  of  his  love,  in  and  out  by  now 
the  work  of  his  hands.  God  had  given  her  a  magnifi- 
cent body,  but  Richard  had  made  it  glow.  God  had 
made  her  soul,  a  fair  room;  but  his  love  had  filled 
it  with  light,  decked  it  with  flowers  and  such  artful 
furniture.  He,  in  fact,  as  she  very  well  knew,  had 
given  her  the  grace  to  deal  queenly  with  herself.  He 
knew  that  she  would  have  strength  to  deny  him,  hav- 
ing learned  the  hardihood  to  give  him  her  soul.  Fate 
had  carried  her  too  young  into  the  arms  of  the  most 
glorious  prince  in  the  world.  .  .  .  What  was  to  be- 
come of  herself?  Mercy  upon  her,  I  believe  she  never 
thought  of  that.     His  honor  was  her  necessity. 

She  is  an  extraordinary  creation,  this  Jehane 
Bel-Vezir,  and  one  of  whom  Mr.  Hewlett  himself  is 
obviously  much  enamored,  for  he  has  lavished  all 
the  riches  of  his  art  upon  her.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  find  in  modern  fiction  a  woman  uniting  such 
prodigality  of  love,  such  fierce  abandonment  to 
passion,  with  so  much  nobility  of  soul,  such  self- 
immolation  when  the  need  comes.  In  her,  as  once 
again  in  Queen  Mary,  Mr.  Hewlett  has  pictured  a 
woman  from  whose  spell  it  is  difficult  to  escape. 
She  holds  henceforth  a  place  in  each  reader's 
Dream  of  Fair  Women,  this  girl  whose  fate  it  was 
to  love  King  Richard,  that  "  blend  of  German  dog 
and  Angevin  cat,"  whom  "  all  women  loved  and 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  69 

very  few  men ;"  who  saw  from  the  start  so  clearly 
and  unfalteringly  that  there  could  be  no  lasting 
union    between   him   and   her;    and   who   had   the 
strength  to  deny  her  own  emotions,  but  could  not 
stem   the  imperious    current   of   his.      The   story 
moves  with  a  swiftness  of  phrase,  a  tumult  of  in- 
cident that  gives  a  sense  of  breathlessness.     Rich- 
ard  wins   a   first   brief  victory   over   his    twofold 
nature,  leaves  Jehane  and  goes  to  his  father,  in 
order  to  accomplish  his  betrothal  to  Alois,  sister 
of  Philip  of  France.    But  on  arriving,  he  finds,  in- 
stead of  a  joyous  bride,  "  a  white  furtive,  creeping 
girl,  from  whose  hair  peered  out  a  pair  of  haunted 
eyes,"    eyes    that    half    reveal    to    him    a    certain 
grim  secret  that  causes  him  to  repudiate  the  alli- 
ance in  hot  haste,  and  madly  ride  back,  to  inter- 
rupt another  man's  bridal  and  snatch  Jehane  from 
the  very  altar  rail.     Then  follow  the  six  "  burn- 
ing days  of  honeymoon,"  the  unforgettable  mid- 
night siege  in  the  wooden  tower,  the  leper's  ghastly 
prophecy,   the  swift   strokes  of  fate  that   crown 
Richard  king  of  England, — and  then  Jehane's  com- 
pact with  the  Queen-Mother,  the  "  flinty  old  shrew 
of  Aquitaine,"  who  none  the  less  mingled  her  tears 
with  Jehane's ;  her  surrender  of  Richard  to  the 
Church  and  Christendom,  and  his  final  "  Words  of 
Yea,"  by  which  he  consents  to  set  aside  Jehane, — 
mother  of  his  child  which  is  to  be,  although  of  this 
fact  he  is  not  yet  aware, — and  marry  the  "  little 


70  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

Spaniard,"  Berangere.  When  he  does  know,  the 
lion  awakens,  and  then  begins  the  "  Book  of  Nay." 
Out  of  a  red  haze  of  war  and  bloodshed,  certain 
facts  emerge  with  poignant  clearness :  Conrad 
of  Montferrat's  plot  to  murder  Richard  through 
aid  of  the  emissaries  of  the  Old  Man  of  Musse, 
Lord  of  the  Assassins,  "  who  lived  on  Lebanon  and 
was  most  wise  in  the  matter  of  women ;"  Jehane's 
gift  of  herself  as  ransom  price  of  King  Richard; 
the  passing  of  Montferrat,  and  the  dead  hand 
shown  in  evidence ;  and  the  final  great  scene  of 
Richard's  death,  in  presence  of  the  three  women 
who  marked  epochs  in  his  life.  There  are  Alois, 
whom  he  had  scorned  to  take  as  cast-off  mistress 
of  his  brother  John ;  Jehane,  whom  he  would  have 
married,  had  she  not  renounced  him ;  Berangere, 
whom  he  had  married,  "  so  far  as  the  Church  could 
provide,"  and  forthwith  deserted  for  the  Crusades, 
— Berangere,  whom  he  had  wronged  in  having 
given  her  "  the  right  to  anything."  "  To  give  it 
you  I  thieved,  and  in  taking  it  again  I  thieved 
again."  Listen  to  Jehane's  words,  as  she  kneels 
beside  the  dying  king: 

"  Dost  thou  question  my  right,  Berangere,"  she  said 
fiercely,  "  to  kiss  a  dead  man,  to  love  the  dead  and 
speak  greatly  of  the  dead  ?  Which  of  us  three  women, 
thinkest  thou,  knoweth  what  report  to  make  concern- 
ing this  beloved,  thou,  or  Alois,  or  I?  Alois  came, 
speaking  of  old  sins;  and  you  are  here,  plaining  of 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  71 

new  sins;  what  shall  I  do,  now  that  I  am  here?  Am 
I  to  speak  of  sin  to  come?  Thou  dear  knight,"  and 
she  touched  his  head,  "  there  is  no  more  room  for 
thy  great  sins,  alas !  But  I  think  that  thou  shalt 
leave  behind  thee  some  spark  of  fire." 

A  wonderful,  passionate,  tumultuous  book,  burn- 
ing with  a  glowing  fire  of  words,  in  structure  some- 
what lawless  and  amorphous,  with  characters  and 
incidents  crowding  and  jostling  on  each  other's 
heels, — and  nevertheless,  leaving  at  the  end  a  crys- 
tal-clear presentment  of  an  incarnate  contradic- 
tion, a  nature  eternally  at  war  with  itself: 

So  generous  as  he  was,  all  the  world  might  have 
loved  him,  as  one  loved  him;  and  yet  so  arrogant  of 
mind  that  the  very  largess  he  bestowed  had  a 
sting  beneath  it,  as  though  he  scorned  to  give  less  to 
creatures  that  lacked  so  much.  All  his  faults  and 
most  of  his  griefs  sprang  from  this  rending  apart  of 
his  nature.  His  heart  cried  Yea !  to  a  noble  motion. 
Then  came  his  haughty  head  to  suggest  trickery,  and 
bid  him  say  Nay!  to  the  heart's  urgency. 

The  Queen 's  Quair,  which  followed  Richard 
Yea-and-Nay  after  an  interval  of  more  than  three 
years,  deserves,  even  more  than  its  predecessor,  the 
appellation  of  "  unique."  One  quality  it  has  in 
common  with  the  earlier  volume :  It  leaves  the 
reader  quite  indifferent  as  to  how  many  other 
writers  before  him  have  handled  the  same  theme. 


72  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

The  Richard  of  Mr.  Hewlett  may  or  may  not  be 
the  Richard  of  history,  or  of  Ivanhoe  and  The 
Talisman;  but  he  is  a  living,  breathing  human 
being,  a  man  whom  we  can  see  and  under- 
stand, as  we  have  never  seen  and  understood  the 
more  shadowy  Richard  of  history.  Similarly,  his 
Mary  Stuart  may  not  be  the  Mary  Stuart  of  the 
old  chroniclers  or  the  modern  poets ;  but  he  has 
made  her  a  tangible  reality,  always  more  of  a 
woman  than  a  queen, — a  slight,  frail  woman,  way- 
ward, changeful  and  moody ;  full  of  the  witchery  of 
her  sex  and  desperately  dependent  upon  human 
sympathy  and  adulation.  In  Richard  Yea-and- 
Nay,  Mr.  Hewlett  had  a  much  easier  task.  He 
was  less  hampered  by  the  recorded  facts ; 
he  could  still  give  free  play  to  his  imagina- 
tion, without  robbing  the  volume  of  its  convincing 
quality.  But  the  story  of  Mary  Stuart  is  not 
merely  a  twice-told  tale ;  it  has  been  told  a  hundred 
times.  Every  reader  brings  to  the  reading  of  this 
volume  a  knowledge  of  precisely  what  is  destined 
to  happen ;  there  are  no  surprises  held  in  reserve ; 
and  no  magic  of  cunningly  wrought  phrases  could 
cheat  us  into  accepting  a  version  at  variance  with 
the  familiar  facts.  Nor  has  Mr.  Hewlett  ventured 
to  disregard  them.  On  the  contrary,  he  seems  to 
have  studied  the  original  sources  with  the  con- 
scientious and  exhaustive  minuteness  of  a  serious 
historian.    He  has  saturated  himself  with  the  con- 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  73 

tents  of  musty  tomes  and  yellow  letters ;  the 
uniqueness  of  this  work  lies  in  the  use  that  he  has 
made  of  his  materials.  He  seems  so  unhesitat- 
ingly sure  of  the  psychological  value  of  each  one 
of  these  old  chronicles  and  diaries  and  memoirs ; 
here  is  a  writer,  he  tells  us,  who  was  mistaken ; 
here  is  another  who  blundered  badly,  and  a  third 
who  lied  boldly  and  with  malevolent  purpose. 
Sometimes  he  will  take  a  voluminous  document,  on 
which  the  methodical  historian  sets  great  store, 
and  he  will  get  from  it  just  one  suggestive  fact, 
one  single  luminous  phrase,  and  then  fling  it  care- 
lessly aside,  like  a  wrung-out  rag.  And  again, 
he  will  seize  upon  some  fugitive  page,  some  half- 
forgotten  letter,  and  absorb  it  greedily,  turning 
and  analyzing  and  dwelling  upon  it,  until  he  tricks 
you  into  the  belief  that  here  at  last  is  the  heart 
of  the  mystery.  And  thus,  without  meddling  with 
the  accepted  facts  of  history,  he  has  so  subtly  and 
insidiously  probed  down  below  the  surface  and 
suggested  secret  motive  of  love  and  hatred,  jeal- 
ousy, anger  and  shame,  that  the  result  is  an  inter- 
woven tissue  of  fact  and  fancy  which  only  an  his- 
torical expert  could  unravel.  Probably  not  since 
the  days  of  Herodotus  have  truth  and  fiction  been 
more  ingeniously  blended. 

What  strikes  the  reader  most  forcibly,  however, 
on  every  page  of  The  Queen's  Quair,  is  that  it 
is  the  supreme  example  of  Mr.  Hewlett's  use  of  the 


74  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

familiar  touch,  the  final  test  of  his  power  to  make 
us  see, — or  think  we  do.  He  will  take  a  dry-as- 
dust  paragraph  from  some  musty  old  chronicle,  a 
mere  catalogue  of  old  Scotch  names ;  and  he  will 
throw  in  a  phrase  here,  a  single  adjective  there, 
which  will  turn  that  catalogue  of  names  into  a 
portrait  gallery  of  vivid,  speaking  likenesses. 
There  is  one  passage  almost  at  the  outset  of  the 
book,  which  every  reviewer  is  likely  to  quote,  not 
merely  because  it  is  the  portrait  of  Mr.  Hewlett's 
heroine,  but  because  it  illustrates,  better,  perhaps, 
than  any  other  paragraph  in  the  whole  volume,  the 
wonderful  and  striking  vividness  that  he  can  gain 
by  the  use  of  simple,  every-day  Anglo-Saxon 
words.  A  foreigner,  reading  it,  might  almost  infer 
that  English,  like  Chinese,  was  a  monosyllabic  lan- 
guage. 

A  tall,  slim  girl,  petted  and  pettish,  pale  yet  not 
unwholesome,  she  looked  like  a  flower  of  the  heath, 
lax  and  delicate.  Her  skin — but  more,  the  very  flesh 
of  her — seemed  transparent,  with  color  that  warmed 
it  from  within,  faintly,  with  a  glow  of  fine  rose. 
They  said  that  when  she  drank  you  could  see  the  red 
wine  run  like  fire  down  her  throat;  and  it  may  be 
partly  believed.  .  .  .  The  Cardinal,  who  was  no 
rhapsodist,  admitted  her  clear  skin,  but  denied  that 
she  was  a  beautiful  girl — even  for  a  queen.  Her 
nose,  he  judged,  was  too  long,  her  lips  were  too  thin, 
her  eyes  too  narrow.     He  detested  her  trick  of  the 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  75 

sidelong  look.  .  .  .  Beautiful  she  may  not  have  been; 
but  fine,  fine  she  was  all  over — sharply,  exquisitely 
cut  and  modeled ;  her  sweet,  smooth  chin,  her  amorous 
lips,  bright  red  where  all  else  was  pale  as  a  tinged 
rose;  her  sensitive  nose;  her  broad,  high  brows;  her 
neck,  which  two  hands  could  hold,  her  small  shoulders 
and  bosom  of  a  child.  She  had  sometimes  an  intent, 
considering,  wise  look — the  look  of  the  Queen  of  De- 
sire, who  knew  not  where  to  set  the  bounds  of  her 
need,  but  revealed  to  no  one  what  that  need  was. 

"  Her  trick  of  the  sidelong  look," — there  is  one 
of  those  small  familiar  touches  that  have  magic 
in  them.  It  recalls  at  once  a  peculiarity  in  the 
eyes  of  more  than  one  familiar  portrait  of  the 
Queen  of  Scots, — a  peculiarity  that  seemed  to 
elude  a  definition.  Now  that  Mr.  Hewlett  has  put 
it  into  words,  it  fairly  haunts  us ;  nowhere  in  the 
book  can  we  get  away  from  it ;  at  every  turn  of  the 
page,  we  are  asking  ourselves  to  what  extent  the 
effect  of  the  queen's  words  is  enhanced  by  that 
trick  of  the  sidelong  glance. 

As  to  the  story,  there  seems  small  profit  in 
dwelling  here  upon  what  every  reader  knows  in  ad- 
vance ;  while  the  especial  shadows  and  high  lights 
added  by  Mr.  Hewlett  cannot  be  given  at  second 
hand.  All  the  old,  familiar  figures  enter  and  play 
their  part, — names  that  have  a  halo  of  romance 
and  poetry  around  them ;  the  bevy  of  the  queen's 
Marys ;  Chatelard,  and  Darnley,  and  Rizzio ;  the 


7G  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

whole  host  of  Scottish  lords,  with  Bothwell,  like 
a  malignant  star,  always  in  the  ascendant.  He  is 
a  well-drawn  villain,  Earl  Bothwell;  Mr.  Hewlett 
shows  no  small  self-satisfaction  in  filling  in  the 
lines ;  there  are  times  when  he  seems  fairly  to  gloat 
over  him: 

A  galliard,  if  ever  there  was  one,  flushed  with  rich 
blood,  broad-shouldered,  square-jawed,  with  a  laugh 
so  happy  and  so  prompt  that  the  world,  rejoicing  to 
hear  it,  thought  all  must  be  well  wherever  he  might 
be.  He  wore  brave  clothes,  sat  a  brave  horse,  kept 
brave  company  bravely.  His  little  eyes  twinkled 
so  merrily  that  you  did  not  see  they  were  like  a 
pig's,  sly  and  greedy  at  once,  and  blood-shot. 

And  then  follows  another  of  those  luminous  little 
touches :  "  The  bridge  of  his  nose  had  been 
broken ;  few  observed  it,  or  guessed  at  the  brawl 
which  must  have  given  it  to  him."  But  if  there 
is  one  little  detail  more  significant,  more  luminous 
than  all  the  others,  about  this  Bothwell  of  the 
"  great  jowl,"  it  is  that  of  "  some  mockery  latent 
in  him,  and  the  suspicion  that  whatever  you  said 
or  did  he  would  have  you  in  derision."  For  it  was 
this  which  "  first  drew  Queen  Mary  to  consider 
him,"  it  was  this  which  kept  him  in  her  thoughts ; 
and  indirectly,  it  was  this  which  led  them  ulti- 
mately to  wreak  their  mutual  undoing.  Of  the  end, 
it  is  best  to  let  Mr.  Hewlett  tell  in  his  own  words: 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  77 

Spited  had  he  been  by  Fortune,  without  doubt. 
He  had  had  the  Crown  and  Mantle  of  Scotland  in 
his  pair  of  hands;  having  schemed  for  six  years  to 
get  them,  he  had  had  them  and  felt  their  goodly 
weight;  and  here  he  was  now  in  hiding,  trusting  for 
bare  life  to  the  help  of  men  who  had  no  reason  to 
love  him.  Where,  then,  were  his  friends?  He  had 
none,  nor  ever  had  but  one, — this  fair,  frail  woman, 
whom  he  had  desired  for  her  store,  and  had  emptied, 
and  would  now   be   rid   of. 

If  his  was  a  sorry  case,  what  was  hers?  Alas, 
the  heart  sickens  to  think  of  it.  With  how  high  a 
head  came  she  in,  she  and  her  cohort  of  maids,  to 
win  wild  Scotland!  Where  were  they?  They  had 
received  their  crowns,  but  she  had  soiled  and  be- 
drabbled  hers.  They  had  lovers,  they  had  children, 
they  had  troops  of  friends;  but  she,  who  had  sought 
with  panting  mouth  for  very  love,  had  had  husbands 
who  made  love  stink,  and  a  child  denied  her,  and  no 
friend  in  Scotland  but  a  girl  and  a  poor  boy.  You 
say  she  had  sought  wrongly.  I  say  she  had  over- 
mastering need  to  seek.  Love  she  must;  and  if  she 
loved  amiss  it  was  that  she  loved  too  well.  You  say 
that  she  misused  her  friends.  I  deny  that  a  girl  set 
up  where  she  was  could  have  any  friends  at  all.  She 
was  a  well  of  sweet  profit, — the  Honey-pot;  and  they 
swarmed  about  her  for  their  meat  like  house-flies; 
and  when  that  was  got,  and  she  drained  dry,  they 
departed  by  the  window  in  clouds,  to  settle  and  fasten 
about  the  nearest  provand  they  could  meet  with: 
carrion  or  honeycomb,  man's  flesh,  dog's  flesh  or 
maid's  flesh,  what  was  it  to  them?     In  those  dreadful 


78  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

days  of  silent  waiting  at  Borthwick,  less  than  a  month 
after  marriage,  I  tell  you  very  plainly  that  she  was 
beggared  of  all  she  had  in  the  world,  and  knew  it. 

Beside  these  two  books,  all  subsequent  work 
of  Mr.  Hewlett's  is  in  the  nature  of  an  anti-climax, 
some  more,  some  less,  but  none  of  it  attaining  a 
similar  amplitude  of  theme,  a  like  commanding 
dignity  of  treatment.  If  it  were  not  for  fear  of 
doing  violence  to  a  fair  sense  of  proportion,  it 
would  be  a  pleasure  to  give  some  space  to  his 
shorter  tales,  to  the  Little  Novels  of  Italy,  The 
New  Canterbury  Tales,  and  the  Fond  Adventures, 
and  more  especially  the  first  and  the  last  of  these 
three,  for  they  are  many  of  them  flawless  little 
gems  of  artistry,  glowing  with  a  sort  of  verbal 
opalescence.  Every  reader  will  have  his  own  fa- 
vorites ;  but  to  the  present  writer  there  is  no  one 
of  these  tales  which  it  is  such  a  pleasure 
to  read  and  read  again  as  that  inimitable 
tale  of  early  Florence,  "  Buondelmonte's  Saga." 
To-day  the  man  who,  with  his  marriage 
day  as  good  as  set,  should  with  scant  cere- 
mony break  off  the  alliance,  for  no  better  reason 
than  that  he  had  seen  another  woman's  face 
that  was  better  to  his  liking,  might  hear  some 
hard  things  said  of  him ;  but  the  end  need  not 
be  tragedy.  In  medieval  Florence,  it  meant  blood- 
shed, riots,  a  city  rent  asunder  with  civil  strife. 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  79 

How  much  of  this  saga  is  true,  how  much  the  coin- 
age of  Mr.  Hewlett's  brain,  he  himself  would  prob- 
ably be  puzzled  to  tell.  He  makes  one  feel  curi- 
ously the  remoteness  of  those  vanished  centuries, 
yet  at  the  same  time  his  pages  tingle  with  vitality, 
as  though  reciting  the  happenings  of  yesterday. 
You  see,  as  if  in  the  flesh,  Buondelmonte  seeking 
to  patch  up  an  old  family  feud  by  forming  an 
alliance  with  the  Uberti;  you  see  smoldering 
anger  and  black  looks  giving  place  to  a  strained 
and  ceremonious  courtesy.  You  see  Buondelmonte, 
now  that  he  is  pledged,  suddenly  falling  tumultu- 
ously  in  love  with  Foreste  Donati's  younger 
daughter,  Piccarda,  and  rashly  concocting  the  first 
clumsy  excuse  that  comes  into  his  mind  for  break- 
ing off  the  alliance  with  the  Uberti.  You  see  the 
latter  gathered  in  secret  council  weighing  the  evi- 
dence, anxious  to  be  sure  of  the  justice  of  their 
quarrel,  sure  that  the  affront  has  been  deliberately 
put  upon  them.  Then  one  more  unforgettable 
scene;  a  lover  in  bridegroom's  attire  hasting  to  a 
rendezvous,  waylaid  at  the  bridge ;  a  brief  confu- 
sion of  men  and  horses,  huddled  together ;  the  flash 
of  a  knife  or  two;  a  dead  man,  lying  muffled  in  his 
cloak,  and  the  whole  city  in  an  uproar. 

There  are  two  or  three  other  volumes  which  it 
seems  worth  while  to  mention  somewhat  in  detail, 
before  passing  on  to  a  brief  estimate  of  Mr.  Hew- 
lett's ill-starred  attempt  at  novels  of  contempo- 


80  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

rary  life.  These  are  The  Fool  Errant,  Brazenhead 
the  Great,  and  The  Stooping  Lady.  The  Fool 
Errant  is  a  less  pretentious  book  than  the  novels 
which  preceded  it ;  there  is  a  latent  vein  of  whim- 
sical humor  in  it  which  some  readers  have  found 
somewhat  baffling;  yet  it  is  likely  to  bring  a  cer- 
tain quiet  joy  to  those  who  have  an  epicurean 
taste  for  delicate  workmanship  in  fiction. 

The  "  Fool  Errant "  of  the  title  is  one  Francis 
Strelley,  a  young  Englishman,  sent  by  his  father 
to  Italy  to  complete  his  education  and  incidentally 
to  be  kept  out  of  mischief,  under  the  guardianship 
of  Dr.  Porfirio  Lanfranchi,  of  the  University  of 
Padua.  Dr.  Lanfranchi  is  briefly  summed  up  as  a 
"  disorderly  genius,  a  huge,  blotch-faced,  tumble- 
bellied  man,  bullet-headed,  bull-necked  and  with 
flashing  eyes."  Now  it  happens  that  this  ungainly, 
panting  behemoth  of  a  man  possesses  a  slender 
dainty  little  wife;  "sparkling  eyes,  a  delicate 
flush,  quick  breath,  a  shape  at  once  pliant  and 
audacious,  flashing  hands  with  which  half  her 
spells  were  woven — all  these,  and  that  wailing, 
dragging,  comico-tragic  voice,  that  fatal  appeal  of 
the  child,  trained  by  the  wisdom  of  the  wife,  com- 
pleted the  rout  of  our  youth.  Before  supper  was 
over  he  was  her  loyal  slave." 

The  opening  chapter  of  The  Fool  Errant  reads 
like  the  opening  stanzas  of  Don  Juan,  with  this 
difference,  that  young  Strelley  was  content  to  set 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  81 

his  lady  high  upon  a  pedestal  and  read  aloud  to 
her  from  the  Commentaries  of  Villani  and  Mala- 
volti's  History  of  Sienna.  Then  comes  the  mo- 
mentous night  when  the  good  Dr.  Lanfranchi,  ar- 
riving as  an  untimely  interruption  to  the  evening's 
reading,  finds  young  Strelley  stowed  away  in  a 
closet,  and  quite  naturally  refuses  to  believe  that 
he  is  there  solely  in  pursuit  of  historical 
learning.  Young  Strelley  is  almost  an  impossible 
character;  in  hands  less  able  than  Hewlett's  he 
would  degenerate  into  pure  burlesque.  To  every 
one  else,  the  fair  Aurelia,  with  her  comico-tragic 
voice,  is  plainly  no  better  than  she  should  be,  an 
intriguing  little  baggage,  whom  the  worthy  Doctor 
was  quite  right  in  discarding.  But  Francis  Strel- 
ley, having  once  enshrined  her  as  a  saint,  would  be- 
lieve no  ill  of  her.  Through  his  fault,  so  he  be- 
lieves, her  husband  had  repudiated  her.  He  must 
dedicate  his  life  to  the  pious  task  of  vindicating 
her  and  restoring  her  to  her  husband's  arms. 
Starting  on  his  self-appointed  mission,  he  delib- 
erately severs  himself  from  all  communication 
with  his  family,  and  goes  forth  penniless,  friend- 
less, nameless  to  wander  through  the  disordered 
and  warring  states  of  eighteenth-century  Italy. 

There  follows  a  fascinating  chronicle  of  a 
strange  and  bizarre  Odyssey  through  hospitals  and 
prisons  and  monasteries,  alone  and  in  company  of 
thieves,  mendicant  priests  and  strolling  players. 


82  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

It  has  been  said  that  The  Fool  Errant  was  an  at- 
tempt to  duplicate  the  success  of  The  Forest 
Lovers  in  a  setting  of  eighteenth-century  Italy, 
just  as  it  was  subsequently  said  that  the  trilogy 
ending  with  Rest  Harrow  was  an  attempt  to  do  the 
same  thing  once  again  in  a  setting  of  modern  Eng- 
land. Be  that  as  it  may,  the  atmosphere  of  The 
Fool  Errant  is  still  sufficiently  alien  and  romantic 
to  permit  of  an  idealistic  treatment,  and  in  spite 
of  actual  places  and  dates  the  central  love  story 
is  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  romance  that  is  nowhere 
forced.  It  pictures  the  gradual  awakening  of  a 
man  who,  after  having  mistakenly  exalted  an  un- 
worthy woman,  finds  his  model  of  constancy  in  an- 
other and  very  different  type  of  girl  whom  he  has 
rescued,  out  of  sheer  pity,  from  a  degradation 
amounting  to  slavery. 

Brazenhead  the  Great,  considered  purposely  out 
of  its  chronological  order,  is  a  volume  which 
tempted  a  good  many  critics  to  exalt  it  above  its 
strict  deserts,  out  of  sheer  gratitude  for  Mr.  Hew- 
lett's return  to  his  own  manner,  after  several  years 
of  literary  vagrancy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is 
not  going  to  be  remembered  as  one  of  its  author's 
big  achievements.  There  is  in  it  a  somewhat  irri- 
tating note  of  extravagance,  almost  of  burlesque. 
But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  the  old  Hewlett  back 
again,  with  all  his  rich  embroidery  of  words  and 
fantastic  play  of  imagination.     Captain  Brazen- 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  83 

head  is  not  a  new  creation ;  we  had  met  him  before 
in  the  New  Canterbury  Tales.  But  here  we  have 
no  less  than  four  of  his  adventures,  each  of  them 
unique,  each  of  them  surcharged  with  concentrated 
vitality,  and  each  of  them  conveying  that  special 
refinement  of  pleasure  which  we  get  from  the  reali- 
zation of  an  inimitable  artistry.  As  for  Brazen- 
head  himself,  "  who  was  born  greatly,  lived  greatly, 
loved  greatly  and  died  greatly,"  there  is  none  quite 
like  him  in  extant  fiction.  The  product  of  a  coarse 
age,  whose  business,  as  he  himself  laconically  sums 
it  up,  is  death,  Captain  Brazenhead  is  not  over  nice 
in  his  speech ;  but  to  those  who  are  not  unduly  sen- 
sitive to  the  crudities  of  Elizabethan  English,  there 
is  a  certain  enjoyment  to  be  derived  from  a  mighty 
blast  of  words  like  the  following: 

Who  eats  me  chokes,  for  I  am  like  that  succulent 
that  conceals,  d'ye  see,  his  spines  in  youthful  bloom. 
You  think  you  have  to  do  with  a  stripling:  not  you, 
pranking  boy,  not  you.  I  am  a  seamed  and  notch- 
fingered  soldier,  who  belched  Greek  fire  while  you 
were  in  your  swaddling-clout.  I  was  old  in  iniquity 
ere  they  weaned  you.  Or  do  you  vie  with  me  in 
perils,  by  cock,  do  you  so  ?  Five  times  left  for  dead ; 
trampled  six  times  out  by  the  rear-guard  of  the  host 
I  had  led  to  victory;  crucified,  stoned,  extenuated, 
cut  into  strips;  in  prisons  frequent,  in  deaths  not 
divided — what  make  you  of  it?  And  you  to  tell  me 
that  your  green  guts  can  pouch  old  Leather-tripes, 


84  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

for  so  they  dub  me  who  dare?     Foh,  you  are  a  blad- 
der, I  see! 

Yes,  Brazenhead  the  Great  rightly  takes  his 
place  among  the  big  swashbuckler  heroes  of  ro- 
mantic fiction,  and  his  death,  like  his  life,  refuses 
to  be  forgotten.  In  this  final  adventure,  Mr.  Hew- 
lett has  done  a  remarkable  piece  of  work,  one  that 
fits  in  perfectly  with  our  sense  of  what  is  adequate, 
and  yet  at  the  same  time  utterly  foreign  to  his 
usual  methods.  Brazenhead's  death  is  allegory, 
pure  and  simple.  He  is  a  mighty  warrior,  Hercu- 
lean, invincible.  To  satisfy  our  sense  of  fitness  he 
must  meet  a  warrior's  death,  he  must  fall  in  a  fair 
fight ;  and  yet  on  the  other  hand,  we  could  not  bear 
to  have  him  meet  a  mightier  foe  than  himself.  Mr. 
Hewlett  has  hit  upon  a  way  of  satisfying  us  in  all 
these  respects.  He  sets  his  unconquered,  uncon- 
querable hero  face  to  face  with  his  own  youth,  with 
the  man  that  he  was  fifty  years  earlier.  The  scene 
is  a  deep  valley,  the  whole  event  is  strange,  por- 
tentous, titanic,  a  picture  such  as  Dore  might  have 
drawn.  And  here  Brazenhead  falls,  slain  by  his 
own  youth,  since  "  none  but  his  own  youth  could 
have  slain  him,  nor  any  slain  his  own  youth  but 
himself  " — which  of  course  is  only  another  way  pf 
stating  the  universal  truth  that  it  is  our  past  life 
that  is  apt  to  prove  our  worst  enemy.  Brazenhead 
the  Great,  although  not  one  of  Mr.  Hewlett's  big- 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  85 

gest  efforts,  contains  certain  scattered  pages, 
single  episodes  that  rank  with  the  best  that  he  has 
ever  done  or  is  ever  likely  to  do. 

The  reason  why  it  seems  worth  while  to  discuss 
The  Stooping  Lady  at  some  length  is  that  it  was 
in  the  nature  of  a  transition  work,  Mr.  Hewlett's 
first  hesitant  attempt  in  the  direction  of  modernity. 
The  flavor  of  a  remote  past  was  so  much  a  part 
of  the  warp  and  woof  of  all  that  he  had  hitherto 
produced  that  the  interesting  question  arose 
whether  it  was  an  inherent  quality  of  his  style,  or 
simply  a  part  of  his  carefully  studied  method  of 
giving  an  historic  atmosphere,  just  as  you  may 
give  a  spurious  age  to  carved  woodwork  by  the 
application  of  the  right  stain  and  varnish.  At 
first  sight,  The  Stooping  Lady  seemed  to  have  ade- 
quately answered  the  question.  There  was  nothing 
of  the  Tapestry  Novel  about  the  new  volume,  and 
yet,  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  it  was  unmis- 
takably Hewlett.  There  was  the  same  sureness  of 
touch  in  word  and  phrase,  the  same  wonderful 
power  of  making  you  see  precisely  what  he  saw  in 
his  mind's  eye — only  this  time  the  pictures  were  as 
unmistakably  early  nineteenth  century  as  in  The 
Queen's  Quair  they  were  Elizabethan.  And  yet  no 
competent  judge  of  fiction  could  fail  to  recognize 
that,  measured  by  Mr.  Hewlett's  earlier  standard, 
The  Stooping  Lady  fell  considerably  short  of  full 
achievement.    Why  this  should  be  so  is  not  immedi- 


86  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

ately  apparent.  The  opening  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  with  its  attendant  unrest,  its  war- 
cry  of  reform,  its  violent  clash  of  awakening  de- 
mocracy, with  the  hereditary  arrogance  of  caste, 
are  inherently  as  full  of  interest  as  other  epochs 
of  English  history  already  treated  by  Mr.  Hewlett. 
And  there  is  no  lack  of  dramatic  strength  in  the 
story  of  a  stalwart  young  butcher  who  resents  with 
his  fists  the  murder  of  his  favorite  horse  by  a 
drunken  lord ;  who  finds  himself  summarily  clapped 
into  jail  for  having  thus  dared  to  assert  his 
rights;  and,  through  the  injustice  that  he  suffers, 
wins  the  notice,  then  the  sympathy,  then  the  love 
of  the  drunken  lord's  wayward,  impetuous,  brave- 
hearted  niece,  who  is  not  herself  conscious  that  she 
is  stooping  when  she  bestows  her  heart  upon  a  man 
whose  clean,  fine  manhood  has  taught  her  to  respect 
and  honor  him.  And  yet,  fine  as  the  story  is  in 
conception  and  in  workmanship,  it  somehow  lacks 
bigness,  finality  and  enduring  interest. 

The  fate  of  Mary  Stuart  will  stir  the  hearts  and 
fire  the  imagination  for  untold  generations  yet  to 
come ;  but  the  fate  of  a  London  butcher,  even  a  self- 
educated  butcher  with  a  poetic  soul  and  a  gift  for 
oratory,  seems  somehow  to  lack  the  magnitude  that 
we  expect  to  find  in  Mr.  Hewlett's  later  work. 
Even  the  author  himself  appears  to  have  felt  at  the 
last  that  there  was  no  better  ending  for  the  story 
than  an  anti-climax.     So  when  the  Stooping  Lady 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  87 

has  stooped  even  to  the  point  of  standing  beside 
her  lover  while  he  endures  his  sentence  to  exposure 
in  the  pillory,  and  the  turbulent  mob  gathers,  and 
the  riot  act  is  read  and  the  soldiers  fire  a  volley 
into  the  crowd,  the  author  shifts  his  responsibility 
over  to  a  stray  bullet  that  finds  its  way  to  the  brain 
of  the  pilloried  butcher  and  saves  the  undeniably 
charming  lady  of  the  title  role  from  the  necessity 
of  stooping  any  longer. 

The  real  trouble,  I  am  afraid,  with  The  Stoop- 
ing Lady,  is  that  in  proportion  as  the  author 
comes  nearer  to  the  present  day,  his  magic  slips 
away  from  him.  In  a  brief  novelette,  called  The 
Spanish  Jade,  the  scene  and  date  are  Spain  in  the 
year  of  I860 — fully  half  a  century  later  than  The 
Stooping  Lady.  But  territorial  remoteness  counts 
for  something,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that,  if  he  chose 
to  lay  his  scene  sufficiently  far  away,  Mr.  Hewlett 
could  write  a  novel  of  the  present  hour  that  would 
stil  have  the  mystic,  intangible  charm  of  The 
Forest  Lovers.  His  Spanish  Jade,  as  it  happens, 
is  a  girl  of  the  gutters,  with  a  savage  beauty,  a 
wild-hearted,  passionate,  lawless  nature.  And  a 
certain  delicate,  thin-lipped  young  Englishman, 
who  saves  her  from  a  pack  of  human  curs  who  are 
hounding  her,  is  the  first  man  from  whom,  in  all 
her  young  life,  she  has  received  a  real  kindness. 
So,  under  the  sway  of  love  and  gratitude,  she  stabs 
to  death  the  Spaniard  who  would  have  killed  them 


88  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

both,  and  then  offers  her  own  life  in  atonement,  to 
save  her  Englishman  from  the  blood-vengeance  of 
the  dead  man's  kin.  As  a  story,  this  little  volume 
is  not  especially  important.  As  a  piece  of  tech- 
nique, Mr.  Hewlett  has  wrought  in  it  a  very  per- 
fect and  surprising  thing.  He  has  told  a  story 
which,  while  you  read,  gives  you  the  impression  of 
great  dimensions — a  vast  canvas,  overspread  with 
a  vista  of  "  a  great,  roomy,  haggard  country,"  a 
kaleidoscopic,  shifting  panorama  of  scenes  and  of 
people;  a  sense  of  gazing  into  measureless  depths 
of  human  passions  ;  of  having  known  and  lived  with 
the  personages  of  the  story,  not  merely  through 
the  brief  space  of  a  few  printed  pages,  but  through 
the  intimacy  of  a  lifetime.  And  yet,  when  the 
story  is  finished,  and  the  cover  closed,  the  human 
truths  he  has  told  are  so  simple  and  so  clear  that 
a  single  chapter  might  have  embodied  them. 

It  remains  only  to  comment  quite  briefly  upon 
Open  Country:  A  Comedy  with  a  String,  Halfway 
House:  A  Comedy  of  Degrees,  and  Rest  Harrow: 
A  Comedy  of  Resolution.  The  three  volumes  form 
a  trilogy,  but  the  trilogy  was  obviously  an  after- 
thought. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  second  volume, 
Halfway  House,  was  issued  first,  and  had  scant 
connection  with  the  other  two.  It  dealt  with  a 
theme  that  would  have  been  dear  to  the  heart  of 
Meredith — and  nine  reviewers  out  of  ten  noted  the 
fact.     It  told  of  the  belated  passion  of  an  elderly 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  89 

country  gentleman,  John  Germain,  for  a  neighbor's 
governess,  Mary  Middleham,  by  name — a  young 
woman  of  ample  charms  and  numerous  embryo  love 
affairs.  Now,  it  happens  to  come  to  the  ears  of  the 
middle-aged  suitor  that  one  of  her  lovers  is  a  family 
connection  of  his  and  one  of  his  prospective  heirs. 
The  girl  is  honest,  according  to  her  lights ;  on  the 
wedding  night,  she  makes  certain  girlish  confes- 
sions, which  leave  the  reader  guessing  as  to  the 
degree  of  their  girlishness.  At  all  events,  they  are 
sufficient  to  kill  his  elderly,  half-spent  passion,  and 
their  relations,  during  his  brief  remaining  span  of 
life,  are  strictly  platonic.  Now,  there  is  a  certain 
eccentric  personage  named  Senhouse — John  Sen- 
house — expert  botanist,  gipsy  by  choice,  philoso- 
pher and  outcast,  whom  the  young  wife  in  question 
runs  across  by  accident,  communes  with,  over  a 
roadside  fire,  and  accepts  as  her  secret  mentor.  It 
is  Senhouse  who  saves  Mary  from  compromising 
rashness  and  convinces  her  that  she  really  does  not 
love  her  husband's  cousin.  It  is  he  who  enables  her 
to  return  unashamed  to  her  husband's  death-bed, 
whisper  to  him  a  last  confession  and  receive  the 
mute  forgiveness  of  his  dying  glance.  But  from 
his  will  she  learns  that  the  dead  husband  pre- 
judged her,  that  he  has  left  her  a  certain  income 
only  for  so  long  a  time  as  she  remains  a  widow,  and 
that  there  is  a  codicil,  bearing  date  just  prior  to 
her  wedding,  leaving  the  cousin  a  generous  share, 


90  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

provided  he  too  remains  unmarried.  Of  course,  it 
is  natural  to  assume  that  the  widow  and  cousin 
brave  poverty  for  the  sake  of  love,  and  defy  the 
selfish  terms  of  the  will.  But  the  reader  would  be 
wrong,  for  the  image  of  Senhouse,  the  gipsy  phi- 
losopher, has  come  between  them,  and  the  widow, 
with  her  eyes  wide  open,  elects  to  leave  home  and 
country,  and  follow  his  nomad  destiny  through  the 
woodlands  of  Germany.  And  at  this  point  Half- 
way House  ends,  and  the  reader  assumes  that  they 
will  marry  and  live  happily  ever  after — and  here 
again  the  reader  is  mistaken. 

Open  Country,  published  subsequently,  but  deal- 
ing with  the  earlier  history  of  Senhouse,  shows  how 
idle  it  was  to  have  assumed  his  marriage  with  the 
heroine  of  Halfway  House.  It  shows  us  Senhouse 
as  a  social  iconoclast,  a  man  in  revolt  against  the 
established  customs  of  his  times,  a  man  who  has  no 
use  for  cities,  wealth,  the  luxuries  of  civilization, 
and  who  has  a  topsy-turvy  code  of  ethics,  among 
which  is  his  chief  dictum  that  the  crowning  insult 
that  any  man  can  offer  to  a  woman  is  a  proposal  of 
marriage.  Now,  the  whole  plot,  both  of  Open 
Country  and  of  Rest  Harrow,  is  simply  the  effect 
of  Senhouse's  irregular  doctrines  upon  a  very 
charming  young  woman,  named  Sanchia  Percival, 
whom  he  first  meets  when  she  is  wading  in  a  pool,  in 
quest  of  water-lilies,  and  whose  limbs,  thus  uncon- 
ventionally exposed  to  public  gaze,  the  reader  has 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  91 

continually  forced  upon  his  attention,  with  the 
persistency  of  an  obsession.  Senhouse  loves  San- 
chia,  but  with  an  exalted  and  mystic  passion  that 
precludes,  at  first,  any  thought  of  earthly  satisfac- 
tion. Sanchia  meanwhile  absorbs  his  unwholesome 
teachings  with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  votary ;  and 
since  she  cannot  have  him,  she  proves  her  sincerity 
by  going  off  with  another  man  named  Ingram,  an 
ordinary,  rather  coarse-minded  fellow,  already  en- 
cumbered with  a  wife.  True  to  her  principles, 
Sanchia  continues  to  live  openly  with  this  man  for 
upward  of  eight  years — and  it  is  somewhere  mid- 
way in  this  period  that  Senhouse  and  Mary  Ger- 
main try  their  unsuccessful  experiment  of  life  in 
common,  also  without  the  fetters  of  matrimony. 
Then  comes  the  death  of  Ingram's  wife,  his  offer  to 
square  accounts  by  marrying  Sanchia,  and  reviving 
hopes  on  the  part  of  her  long  scandalized  family 
that  at  last  she  may  be  socially  rehabilitated.  But 
these  hopes  prove  groundless.  Almost  on  the  eve 
of  the  tardy  wedding,  she  slips  quietly  away  in  the 
night-time,  to  join  Senhouse  in  his  bare  little  shack 
among  the  goat  pastures,  for  a  honeymoon  beneath 
the  stars — a  honeymoon  that  may  or  may  not  later 
receive  the  sanction  of  the  Church.  Such  is  the 
substance  of  these  three  volumes  which,  in  spite  of 
Mr.  Hewlett's  mature  artistry,  and  some  shrewd 
observance  of  modern  types,  remain  unconvincing, 
exaggerated,  at  times  almost  grotesque.    As  an  idyl 


92  MAURICE  HEWLETT 

of  romantic  love,  it  is  all  as  absurdly  out  of  place 
as  a  knightly  tourney  in  the  midst  of  Piccadilly ; 
while  if  we  are  to  take  the  volumes  seriously  and  to 
imagine  that  the  preposterous  doctrines  preached 
by  Senhouse  in  any  way  represent  Mr.  Hewlett's 
own  views,  it  becomes  necessary  to  regard  them  as 
distinctly  unwholesome  as  well  as  inartistic. 

Accordingly,  we  have  Mr.  Hewlett  standing 
openly  to-day  at  the  crossroads,  trying  to  follow 
two  paths  at  once,  and  sadly  in  danger  of  making 
no  further  advance.  It  would  be  futile  to  advise 
him  to  revert  to  his  earlier  method  of  Richard  Yea- 
and-Nay,  and  The  Queen's  Quair;  for,  when  an 
artist  has  once  outgrown  a  certain  mood,  outlived  a 
definite  phase  of  his  development,  there  can  be  no 
successful  going  back ;  his  heart  would  not  be  in 
the  work,  and  it  could  not  be  sincere.  Yet  he  ought 
to  have  given  us  more  than  those  two  volumes.  His 
special  equipment  for  the  task  was  the  patient 
labor  of  years ;  his  whole  style  was  elaborated  to 
that  one  end,  and  the  peculiar  archaic  flavor  of  it 
is  something  that  he  can  no  longer  lay  aside  at  will, 
but  must  needs  retain,  in  spite  of  its  incongruity  in 
a  modern  setting.  It  is  as  though  a  musician,  with 
slim,  flexible  fingers,  trained  to  an  exquisite  sensi- 
bility, skilled  to  caress  the  tremulous  strings  of  a 
violin  with  hair's-breadth  accuracy,  should  deliber- 
ately choose  to  waste  their  magic  touch  in  ham- 
mering out  socialistic  tracts  upon  a  typewriter. 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  93 

There  is  good  reason  to  fear  that  the  best  we  may 
hope  to  have  from  him  in  the  future  is  further  in- 
stalments of  extravagant,  braggadocio  satire  of 
the  Brazenhead  type,  and  the  worst,  other  volumes 
of  the  pseudo-Meredithian  type  of  Rest  Harrow. 
But  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  in  the  earlier 
Maurice  Hewlett  we  have  the  chief  living  champion 
of  purely  romantic  fiction,  and  a  stylist  of  the  first 
order,  whose  cadenced  prose  is  a  delight  to  the  ear, 
whose  verbal  color  has  the  gleam  of  many  jewels, 
and  who  has  given  us  at  least  two  novels  and  many 
short  stories  which  the  epicures  of  literature  will 
not  willingly  allow  to  die. 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

It  is  a  simple  matter  and  one  requiring  compara- 
tively little  space,  to  set  forth  the  qualities  that  en- 
title Mr.  Eden  Phillpotts  to  high  consideration 
among  contemporary  English  novelists.  He  has 
not  the  perplexing  versatility  of  Mr.  Kipling  or 
Mr.  Hewlett  or  Mr.  Ollivant;  having  found  his 
path,  he  is  content  for  the  most  part  to  tread  it 
faithfully,  even  though  it  lead  him  in  a  beaten  cir- 
cle ;  he  is  wise  in  preferring  to  do  one  kind  of  thing 
with  finished  art,  rather  than  half  a  dozen  things 
indifferently  well.  Like  other  writers,  he  passed 
through  an  experimental  stage;  he  made  the  very 
common  mistake  of  thinking  that  merit  lay 
in  the  strange  and  startling  and  sinister — and 
when  there  was  a  dearth  of  the  sensational 
at  home,  he  sought  it  far  afield,  as  in  Loup- 
garou!  Impressions  of  West  Indian  Life.  But 
these  early  tentative  writings  have  left  less  than 
the  shadow  of  a  memory  on  the  public  mind.  Mr. 
Phillpotts  is  definitely  labeled  as  the  author  of 
Children  of  the  Mist,  of  The  River  and  The  Whirl- 
wind, the  exponent  of  the  life  of  Devonshire  in 
much   the   same   definite   and   exclusive   way   that 

94 


EDEN  PHII.T. POTTS 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  95 

Thomas  Hardy  is  of  Wessex  and  George  W.  Cable 
of  New  Orleans.  It  seems  inevitable  to  write  of 
Mr.  Phillpotts  without  making  mention  of  Hardy ; 
the  points  in  common,  especially  in  his  earlier 
Devon  stories,  must  strike  even  a  novice  at  criti- 
cism. Even  Mr.  Howells,  to  whom  Mr.  Phillpotts 
came  as  a  new  discovery,  a  couple  of  years  ago, 
found  himself  echoing  this  same  stereotyped  com- 
parison, and  adding  to  it  another  that  we  all  must 
feel — the  George  Eliot  of  St.  Oggs  and  The  Mill  on 
the  Floss.  As  the  product  of  a  younger  genera- 
tion, Mr.  Phillpotts  has  at  least  one  important 
point  of  technique  in  his  favor ;  he  is  more  imper- 
sonal. Hardy,  splendid  and  unfaltering  painter 
that  he  is  of  human  nature,  always  leaves  with  me 
an  impression  that  he  has  chosen  his  characters 
for  the  express  purpose  of  proving  some  theory  of 
life,  some  canon  of  his  somber  philosophy.  Mr. 
Phillpotts  shows  us  his  little  group  of  actors  on 
their  miniature  stage,  and  then  leaves  the  outcome 
to  themselves  and  to  destiny.  And  his  great 
strength  lies  in  the  exceeding  simplicity  of  his 
people,  his  themes,  his  entire  artistic  material.  His 
men  and  women,  the  best  of  them,  are  primitive,  al- 
most elemental ;  his  situations  all  hinge  upon  the 
basic,  primeval  emotions,  love  and  hate,  envy  and 
greed — and  are  worked  out  on  lines  of  almost 
Greek  austerity.  In  depicting  life,  the  crude,  un- 
tutored peasant  life,  he  simply  does  not  know  how 


96  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

to  be  artificial.  If  anything,  he  errs  too  far  the 
other  side,  and  in  depicting  the  speech  and  con- 
duct of  his  rustics  there  is  often  a  Zolaesque 
frankness  beyond  the  immediate  exigencies  of  the 
picture  he  would  paint.  But  his  grip  upon  his 
types  of  character,  men  and  women  alike,  is  un- 
deniable. One  feels  that  here  is  a  weaver  of  pic- 
tured life  who  spins  his  thread  direct  from  the  raw 
material  of  human  nature.  And  in  doing  so,  he 
achieves  some  curious  and  striking  results.  The 
modern  spirit,  full  of  questionings  and  doubtings, 
has  penetrated  like  a  pestilence,  if  we  are  to  ac- 
cept Mr.  Phillpotts's  evidence,  among  these  "  Chil- 
dren of  the  Mist,"  and  played  havoc  with  their 
peace  of  mind,  leaving  them  at  a  sad  disadvantage 
in  their  efforts  to  cope  with  the  puzzling  problems 
of  ethics  and  morality. 

It  is  for  such  reasons  as  these  that,  if  asked  to 
name  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  the  work  of 
Mr.  Phillpotts,  I  should  say  that  he  enjoys  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  unusually  well  rounded,  that 
within  a  circumscribed  area  he  sees  life  with  pe- 
culiar clearness  and  sees  it  as  a  whole.  His  novels 
are  in  no  sense  religious  novels,  yet  he  never  lets  us 
forget  that  religion  and  scepticism  are  potent 
factors  in  our  daily  life ;  they  are  not  sex-problem 
novels,  yet  he  keeps  in  mind  the  fact  that  man  and 
woman  are  human  animals  as  well  as  embodied 
spirits ;  they  are  not  political  or  socialist  novels, 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  97 

yet  the  existence  of  class  distinction  and  of  hered- 
itary injustice  between  man  and  man  is  brought 
into  the  fabric  of  every  page.  In  short,  the  little 
corner  of  Devon  in  which  most  of  his  dramas  are 
enacted  is  a  miniature  cosmos,  wherein  nothing 
pertaining  to  human  nature  is  alien  to  his  purpose. 
This  is  his  first  distinction,  his  all-around  and 
sympathetic  understanding  of  humanity.  And  his 
second,  hardly  less  in  importance,  is  his  artist's 
joy  in  the  ever  changing  face  of  nature.  As  a 
landscape  painter  in  words,  he  has  no  equal  since 
the  days  of  William  Black.  He  is  a  master  of  the 
effects  of  light  and  shade,  the  glint  of  faint  sun- 
shine through  breaking  clouds,  the  shifting  forms 
of  distant  hills,  seen  vaguely  through  curtains  of 
slanting  rain,  the  shimmer  of  moonlight  through 
thin  leafage,  the  riot  of  color  when  nature  bursts 
into  blossom — all  these  things  he  gives  us  with  a 
prodigality  that  would  be  excessive,  if  they  were 
not  their  own  justification — if  he  did  not  use  them 
so  triumphantly  to  interpret  character,  to  explain 
the  environment  and  the  influences  that  have  pro- 
duced certain  human  types.  One  is  tempted  to 
paraphrase  a  familiar  definition,  and  to  character- 
ize the  novels  of  Mr.  Phillpotts  as  "  cross-sections 
of  life,  seen  through  an  atmosphere." 

The  first  book  that  brought  Mr.  Phillpotts  into 
general  notice,  both  in  England  and  America,  was, 
curiously  enough,  not  laid  in  the  district  destined 


98  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

later  to  be  identified  with  him,  but  in  the  adjacent 
county  of  Cornwall — and  incidentally  proves  him 
to  be  as  skilled  a  painter  of  the  marine  landscape 
as  he  is  of  mountain  and  of  moor.  Lying  Proph- 
ets, which  appeared  in  1897,  is  undoubtedly  the 
corner-stone  of  Mr.  Phillpotts's  reputation.  And 
yet  the  theme  is  as  old  as  the  origin  of  fiction  itself. 
It  is  merely  one  more  of  the  countless  versions  of  a 
simple,  untutored  young  woman  whom  nature  has 
chosen  to  make  beautiful,  who  longs  for  something 
better  than  her  lot  in  life  affords  her,  who  lends  a 
credulous  ear  to  a  handsome  and  cultured 
stranger,  and  pays  the  penalty  which,  under  ex- 
isting conventions,  woman  must  pay  for  breaking 
the  unwritten  law.  Joan  Tregenza  belongs  to  a 
race  of  fanatics.  Her  father,  known  as  Gray 
Michael,  is  a  leading  spirit  in  the  sect  known  as 
the  Luke  Gospelers ;  a  sect  which  finds  a  perverse 
joy  in  believing  all  the  rest  of  humanity  and  a 
goodly  share  of  their  own  number  to  be  predestined 
to  damnation.  Bigotry,  self-righteousness,  phar- 
isaical  complacency  have  seldom  been  better  por- 
trayed than  in  the  character  of  Gray  Michael. 
And  yet  one  realizes  that  he  is  a  pagan  at  heart ; 
that  if  it  were  not  for  the  restraints  of  the  law  he 
would  gladly  commit,  in  the  name  of  God,  atroci- 
ties worthy  of  those  ancient  Phoenician  pioneers 
who  are  the  legendary  ancestors  of  Cornishmen. 
From    the    time    when    Gray    Michael    beat    Ins 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  99 

daughter  until  she  fell  in  a  faint  at  his  feet,  for  no 
more  serious  sin  than  attending  an  evening  service 
at  Saint  Peter's,  the  girl  lived  in  secret  rebellion 
against  her  surroundings ;  but  no  opportunity  for 
self-assertion  presented  itself  until  the  advent  of 
John  Barron,  famous  artist,  invalid  of  numbered 
days  and  faithful  exponent  of  finished  egotism. 
Joan,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  is  betrothed 
to  a  fisherman  known  as  Joe ;  and  the  sight  of  her 
standing  on  a  promontory,  in  the  midst  of  a  yellow 
glory  of  gorse  in  blossom,  waving  good-by  to  a 
receding  schooner,  gives  Barron  the  inspiration  for 
which  he  has  been  waiting,  the  germ  idea  for  his 
last  great  picture,  "  Joe's  Ship."  The  substance 
of  this  book  is  the  history  of  Joan's  slow  trans- 
formation under  the  tutelage  of  John  Barron ;  the 
insidious  poison  of  his  esthetic  pantheism  work- 
ing upon  a  spirit  in  revolt  against  the  stifling 
narrowness  of  the  religious  creed  in  which  it  has 
been  nurtured.  Joan  is  a  splendid  portrayal  of 
triumphant  physical  womanhood,  instinct  with  the 
supreme  joy  of  living;  and  she  welcomes  Bar- 
ron's glorification  of  the  divine  spirit  of  nature, 
the  divinity  lurking  in  every  blossom  and  blade  of 
grass,  as  a  doctrine  for  which  she  has  been  uncon- 
sciously thirsting  all  her  life.  Week  by  week  she 
visits  him  secretly;  week  by  week  the  picture  of 
"  Joe's  Ship,"  with  Joan  as  its  central  figure, 
moves  toward  consummation — and  with  it  her  will 


100  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

yields  to  that  of  the  artist.  And,  of  course,  the 
inevitable,  which  is  also  the  irreparable,  comes  to 
pass.  And  John  Barron,  whose  acknowledged  rule 
of  life  is  "  to  sacrifice  all  things  to  mood,"  passes 
out  of  Joan's  life,  with  many  a  promise  which  he 
has  no  intention  of  keeping,  leaving  her  to  make 
pathetic  daily  pilgrimages  to  the  post  office  at 
Penzance,  seeking  for  letters  that  do  not  come,  and 
hoping  against  hope  for  a  marriage  ring  that  will 
antedate  the  advent  of  her  child.  The  ending  of 
the  book  is  weak ;  Mr.  Phillpotts  was  at  this  epoch 
still  straining  after  the  ususual  and  the  startling, 
still  liable  to  mistake  the  intervention  of  natural 
forces  for  a  satisfactory  solution  of  a  purely 
human  problem.  John  Barron,  yielding  to  the 
last  caprice  of  a  dying  man,  writes  to  Joan  telling 
of  his  condition  and  pitifully  appealing  to  her  to 
come  to  him.  It  is  this  letter  which  sends  Joan 
blindly  out  into  the  night,  in  her  enfeebled  condi- 
tion, just  at  the  hour  when  pent-up  torrents  are 
about  to  break  their  bounds  in  a  devastating  flood. 
Joe,  her  affianced  husband,  who  throughout  these 
months  has  been  away,  comes  into  the  story  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  to  find  his  promised  bride  a  corpse, 
with  a  lasting  stain  upon  her  memory,  and  rushes 
off  in  hot  haste  to  London,  to  exact  vengeance. 
But  here  again  he  comes  just  too  late,  for  Fate 
has  already  intervened  and  Barron  also  is  dead. 
In  two  respects  this  ending  is  bad  art ;  first,  in  the 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  101 

intrusion  of  blind  chance  as  a  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem ;  and  secondly,  in  the  introduction,  at  the  clos- 
ing scene,  of  a  character  that  has  previously  had 
no  speaking  part  in  the  drama.  Yet,  just  as  it 
stands,  this  book  possesses  a  certain  finished  work- 
manship and  a  truthfulness  to  life  that  eminently 
justify  the  praise  bestowed  by  the  Athenceum, 
that  "  nothing  so  powerful  in  this  line  has  ap- 
peared since  Esther  Waters." 

The  Children  of  the  Mist,  the  first  of  the  really 
significant  Devon  stories,  is  in  itself  a  sufficient 
corner-stone  on  which  to  build  a  solid  reputation. 
I  question  whether,  among  his  subsequent  volumes, 
Mr.  Phillpotts  has  produced  any  that  is  at  once 
so  simple  in  material,  so  human,  so  unmistakably  a 
transcript  from  the  life  he  knew  and  studied  at 
first  hand.  It  is  not  so  well  constructed  as  his 
later  books ;  the  plot  is  loose,  diffuse,  with  too 
many  side  interests ;  the  leading  characters  are 
disappointingly  small  at  critical  moments,  and  the 
final  solution,  as  in  Lying  Prophets,  turns  on  a 
whim  of  fate.  Yet  the  net  impression  left  by  the 
book  is  of  something  rare  and  fine  and  true ;  some- 
thing more  spacious  and  more  inspiring  than  a 
mere  chronicle  of  a  few  narrow  human  lives — it  is 
all  Devon  that  he  has  given  us,  flung  broadly  be- 
fore us  in  "  a  radiance  of  misty  silver."  It  is  the 
physiognomy  of  a  landscape,  the  psychology  of  a 
community    that    he    has    tried    to    interpret    in 


102  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

Children  of  the  Mist;  and  in  a  canvas  so  ample, 
the  individual  is  necessarily  dwarfed.  If  the  two 
brothers,  Martin  and  John  Grimbal,  had  not  re- 
turned from  Africa,  after  many  years'  absence, 
bringing  with  them  substantial  riches,  Will  Blan- 
chard's  courtship  of  Miller  Lyddon's  daughter, 
Phoebe,  would  have  been  met  with  less  violent  op- 
position, and  Will's  sister,  Chris,  might  have  found 
less  tragedy  in  her  love  for  Clem  Hicks,  expert 
bee-keeper  and  rustic  poet.  Will  Blanchard's  be- 
setting sin  is  his  violent  temper,  that  leads  him 
into  reckless  deeds  the  consequences  of  which  he 
does  not  stop  to  weigh.  When  Miller  Lyddon,  im- 
movable in  his  stolid  obstinacy,  refuses  to  listen  to 
Will's  suit,  and  vows  that  his  daughter  shall  wed 
John  Grimbal,  Will  hot-headedly  leaves  home  and 
under  an  assumed  name  enlists  in  the  army,  lured 
by  fantastic  visions  of  prosperity  and  fame,  and 
tells  his  secret  to  no  one  but  his  friend,  Clem 
Hicks.  Months  drift  by,  and  slowly  Phoebe's  op- 
position to  Grimbal  is  overborne,  her  confidence  in 
Will  is  shaken,  and  she  consents  to  marry  as  her 
father  wishes.  Then  follows  an  urgent  message 
from  Clem,  and  Will  commits  his  second  rash  act 
by  deserting  and  returning  on  the  eve  of  Phoebe's 
wedding  day,  bearing  her  off  in  triumph  and 
marrying  her  through  the  aid  of  an  uncle  in  a  dis- 
tant village.  The  greater  part  of  the  story  that 
follows,   so  far  as   there   is   any   clear-cut  story, 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  103 

concerns  the  slow  and  at  first  almost  hopeless 
efforts  of  the  young  couple  to  win  forgiveness 
from  the  dogged,  stubborn  old  father,  his  reluc- 
tant decision  not  to  have  Will  prosecuted  for  ab- 
duction and,  after  two  years  of  weary  waiting,  his 
inability  to  keep  the  husband  and  wife  any  longer 
apart.  It  is  a  slow,  leisurely  chronicle,  witnessed 
through  the  shifting  seasons  of  sun  and  rain ;  a 
peaceful  chronicle,  too,  except  for  the  stormy  un- 
dercurrent of  hatred  between  Blanchard  and  the 
man  whom  he  robbed  of  a  wife.  John  Grimbal 
guesses  vaguely  that  there  is  some  secret  con- 
nected with  Will's  mysterious  absence  from  home, 
which,  if  known  to  him,  would  give  him  a  chance 
for  vengeance.  And  after  years  of  patient  wait- 
ing he  discovers  the  secret  through  pure  accident. 
Once  before,  it  was  almost  in  his  grasp.  Clem 
Hicks,  the  only  person  whom  Will  had  ever  told, 
has  quarreled  with  him  bitterly,  is  about  to  square 
a  grudge  and  betray  him  to  Grimbal,  when  a  false 
step  off  the  lofty  edge  of  Oke  Tor  lands  him  on  the 
rocks  far  below,  with  a  broken  neck.  And,  if  fate 
must  intervene  to  save  him  from  betraying  the 
brother,  it  would  have  been  kinder  had  it  acted 
soon  enough  to  spare  the  sister  too ;  for  by  his  un- 
timely death,  Clem  leaves  the  woman  he  loves  to 
face  the  world,  not  as  a  wife,  yet  as  the  mother  of 
his  child.  But  this  second  tragedy  is  subordinated 
by  the  author  to  the  main  issue  of  what  use  John 


104  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

Grimbal  will  make  of  his  knowledge  that  his  enemy, 
now  for  ten  years  the  husband  of  the  woman  he 
coveted,  is  a  deserter  and  liable  to  arrest  and 
punishment.  The  scene  between  the  two,  in  which 
each  arises  to  unexpected  heights,  the  one  in  mag- 
nanimity, the  other  in  a  newly  awakened  desire  to 
expiate  his  crime,  is  a  striking  instance  of  the 
author's  ability  to  take  a  situation  tensely  dra- 
matic in  itself,  and  wring  new  and  unexpected 
poignancy  from  it  by  making  awakened  conscience 
sweep  conditions  aside,  as  one  might  sweep  the 
pawns  from  a  chessboard.  It  is  something  more 
than  a  pity  that,  when  Grimbal  has  decided  to 
spare  Will,  and  Will,  refusing  to  be  spared,  has 
gone  to  deliver  himself  up,  the  credit  should  be 
taken  from  both  of  them  by  the  accidental  mailing 
of  a  letter  that  Grimbal  meant  to  destroy,  and 
that  reaches  the  Commandant  at  Plymouth  ahead 
of  Blanchard ;  and  secondly,  after  he  had  sur- 
rendered, prepared  to  take  the  punishment  that 
awaited  him,  it  is  again  a  pity  that  his  liberation 
and  return  to  his  wife  and  newly  born  heir  should 
be  due  to  the  fact  that,  on  the  occasion  of  her 
Jubilee,  the  Queen  has  chosen  to  pardon  all  de- 
serters. It  is  sheer  coincidence  and  a  blot  on  a 
story  otherwise  admirable  in  workmanship. 

Sons  of  the  Morning  will  not  need  much  atten- 
tion. Although  the  setting  is  essentially  the  same 
as  in  Children  of  the  Mist,  the  substance  of  the 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  105 

story  shows  a  falling  back  to  the  author's  earlier 
melodramatic  tendency.  The  opening  situation  is 
not  unsimilar  to  that  of  the  previous  book.  Honor 
Endicott  might  have  married  Christopher  Yeo- 
land,  whose  estates  border  on  her  own,  and  been 
very  happy  with  him,  in  spite  of  his  volatile 
character,  his  inability  to  settle  down  to  useful 
work,  if  Myles  Stapleton,  older,  graver,  of  more 
sterling  worth,  had  not  chanced  to  come  back  from 
his  travels  at  a  crucial  hour.  But  here  the  two 
stories  part  company.  Unconsciously,  Honor 
finds  herself  drifting  into  a  closer  friendship  with 
Myles  than  is  right  for  the  promised  bride  of  an- 
other man ;  before  she  is  quite  aware  how  it  hap- 
pened, she  is  in  love  with  two  men  at  once,  and 
cannot  tell  even  herself  which  of  the  two  means 
the  more  to  her.  Christopher,  had  he  been  less 
impulsive,  might  have  triumphed ;  but  instead,  he 
quarrels  with  Honor,  departs  tempestuously  for 
Australia,  and  a  few  months  later  the  news  comes 
that  he  has  been  bitten  by  a  snake  and  is  dead. 
Now  that  her  doubt  is  solved  for  her,  Honor  mar- 
ries Myles,  and  settles  down  contentedly  to  a  life 
which,  if  lacking  the  keen  joy  of  living  that 
Christopher's  ardor  once  promised,  at  least  offers 
years  of  untroubled  domesticity.  But  it  happens 
that  Christopher  is  not  dead,  that  the  man  bitten 
by  a  snake  is  a  distant  cousin,  and  that  in  one  of 
his  rash  impulses  he  has  quixotically  allowed  the 


106  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

false  report  to  go  uncorrected,  in  order  to  insure, 
as  he  thinks,  the  happiness  of  the  woman  whom  he 
loves  and  who  has  learned  to  love  another  man. 
Having  done  this  deed,  Christopher  should  have 
abided  by  it ;  no  man  has  the  right  to  play  Enoch 
Arden  one  day  and  resurrect  himself  the  next.  Yet 
that  is  precisely  what  Christopher,  the  sport  of  his 
own  transient  whims,  sees  fit  to  do;  and  his  secret 
return  to  his  home,  and  the  sight  of  him,  suddenly 
and  without  warning,  in  the  gloom  of  woods  at 
night,  costs  the  life  of  Stapleton's  unborn  heir,  and 
very  nearly  costs  the  life  of  the  mother.  The  plot 
fails  to  carry  conviction,  and  drags  on  quite 
unnecessarily.  The  idea  of  three  people  making 
themselves  wretched  because  the  wife  will  not  de- 
cide between  them,  the  husband  is  reluctant  to  as- 
sert himself,  and  the  other  man  is  too  selfish  to  do 
the  honorable  thing,  is  all  so  preposterous  as  to  be 
almost  grotesque.  And  then,  finally,  when  hus- 
band and  wife  have  their  crucial  talk  together, 
and  she  awakens  to  a  sense  of  her  own  unfairness 
and  declares  unequivocally  her  preference  for  him 
and  her  wish  to  be  taken  away  where  she  will  never 
again  hear  the  sound  of  Christopher's  voice,  an- 
other trick  of  fate  intrudes  itself,  the  happy  hus- 
band falls  headlong  from  Teign's  Head,  and  the 
widow,  although  she  eventually  marries  the  other 
man,  goes  through  life  with  the  secret  and  re- 
morseful fear  that  she  had  failed  to  convince  Myles 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  107 

of  her  love  for  him  and  that  his  death  was  not  an 
accident. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible,  in  the  case  of  a 
writer  so  uniformly  industrious,  to  attempt  to  dis- 
cuss in  detail  even  a  majority  of  his  volumes;  and 
some  of  them,  as,  for  instance,  The  Good  Red 
Earth,  do  not  deserve  it.  It  has  the  customary 
flavor  of  the  soil,  but  in  essence  it  is  a  mystery 
story,  turning  upon  the  discovery  of  some  hidden 
documents,  and  the  identity  of  a  child,  supposed 
to  be  a  caretaker's  daughter.  A  book  of  very 
different  caliber,  one  of  the  books,  in  fact,  that 
really  count,  is  The  River.  Here  again,  as  in  Chil- 
dren of  the  Mist,  Mr.  Phillpotts's  dominant  pur- 
pose has  been  to  show  the  mighty  and  far-reaching 
influence  of  environment  on  character.  If  it  were 
not  for  the  River,  the  Dart,  he  seems  to  say,  none 
of  these  lives  would  have  been  lived  as  here  set 
down.  It  is  an  ever  present  influence,  moulding 
characters,  shaping  destinies,  emphasizing  at  once 
the  ceaseless  changefulness  of  nature  and  the 
mutability  of  man.  In  this  volume,  more  than 
anywhere  else,  we  get  a  glimpse  of  Eden  Phill- 
potts's kinship  with  Joseph  Conrad,  in  his  ability 
to  measure  man  alongside  of  the  titanic  forces  of 
nature.  Take  for  instance  this  bit  of  description 
of  the  Dart  at  flood-time: 

From  the  granite  centers  of  the  hills,  headlong 
down  the  rocky  places,  boiling,  shrieking  over  steeps 


108  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

and  shallows  like  a  Fury  with  lightning  in  her  hair, 
she  (the  Dart)  came.  From  the  playground  of  the 
wind,  from  the  hidden  secrets  of  her  springs,  swollen 
to  a  torrent,  swelled  to  ungovernable  cataracts,  she 
poured  herself  between  the  heights;  and  the  noise  of 
her  passing  was  mingled  with  the  thunder,  with  the 
reverberations  and  concussions  of  the  air  and  repeti- 
tions of  the  earth.  Her  hoarse  ravings  ascended  to 
the  sky,  and,  borne  by  echoing  ravines  and  crags, 
fell  upon  the  frightened  ear ;  her  maniac  shout  knelled 
death  and  disaster,  and  set  the  husbandmen  shaking 
for  their  beasts.  Into  the  valley  she  rolled,  and 
rioted  even  as  high  as  the  branches  of  the  trees  that 
shadowed  her ;  her  locks  of  foam  were  tawny  and  her 
current  black. 

As  for  the  story,  it  is  merely  the  oft-told  theme 
of  the  way  of  a  maid  with  two  men.  Hannah 
Braidridge,  "  tall,  full-blooded,  with  sleepy  eyes 
and  strong,  budding  passions,"  is  the  heroine. 
She  finds  herself  wavering  between  Nicholas  Edge- 
combe, a  warrener,  clean  of  limb  and  of  thought, 
who  dwells  "  among  immortal  things,"  and  Tim- 
othy Oldrew,  a  gentleman  farmer,  essentially  bad 
at  heart,  who  nevertheless  exhibits  from  time  to 
time  a  momentary  flash  of  elemental  decency. 
Hannah's  faithlessness,  and  her  shifting  back  and 
forth  between  the  farmer  and  the  warrener,  form 
the  mainspring  of  the  human  narrative,  which  is 
necessarily  somewhat  subordinated  to  the  central 
theme  of  the  River  itself.     It  is  the  Dart  which  is 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  109 

the  real  heroine,  the  Dart  that  is  full-blooded,  with 
strong,  budding  passions,  the  Dart  whose  change- 
ful moods  no  human  heroine  could  rival. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  waste  time  or  space  upon 
a  volume  such  as  The  Golden  Fetish,  narrating  the 
quest  of  a  great  treasure  of  precious  stones,  hid- 
den in  the  land  of  the  Batoncas,  in  Central  Africa. 
It  may  be  defined  as  a  fairly  adequate  attempt  to 
perform  an  unfamiliar,  if  not  uncongenial  task. 
But,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Phillpotts  is 
capable  of  better  and  higher  things,  it  seems  a  pity 
that  he  could  not  be  content  to  leave  riotous 
romance  of  this  particular  brand  in  the  eminently 
capable  hands  of  Mr.  Rider  Haggard.  It  is  a  relief 
to  turn  to  a  subsequent  volume  that  finds  Mr. 
Phillpotts  once  more  back  in  the  familiar  setting 
of  the  tors  and  woodlands  of  Dartmoor,  and  once 
more  interpreting  the  strong,  rugged  elemental 
men  and  women  who  inhabit  it.  The  Secret 
Woman  stands  high  among  the  best  works  its 
author  has  given  us ;  and,  what  is  more,  he  has 
gained  in  unity  of  theme,  as  is  shown  by  the  com- 
paratively few  words  needed  to  expound  it.  It 
deals  with  a  tragedy  as  old  as  human  nature  itself. 
Anthony,  Redvers  is  in  his  heart  a  rebel  against  the 
laws  of  marriage,  social  and  divine.  According  to 
his  secret  creed,  "  'Tis  only  a  wicked  saying  of  the 
parson's  that  a  man  can't  love  two  womei  true  an' 
tender.    Love's  an  honest  thing,  an'  them  as  have 


110  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

made  it  to  be  a  wicked  thing  are  black-coated  devils 
that  would  starve  the  nature  out  of  human  life, 
if  they  could."  He  sees  no  lack  of  loyalty  toward 
the  faithful,  austere,  prematurely  aging  wife, 
after  fifteen  wedded  years,  in  giving  a  share  of  his 
own  turbulent  and  lawless  affections  to  the  young 
woman  whom  fate  has  flung  secretly  into  his  arms. 
The  only  shame  and  wrong  would  be  to  let  the 
knowledge  come  to  his  wife  and  distress  her.  One 
day,  however,  the  secret  is  betrayed,  and  the  wife, 
in  a  jealous  frenzy,  strikes  her  husband  dead.  It 
chances  that  both  the  erring  women,  the  murderess 
and  her  rival,  escape  detection ;  and  the  book 
becomes  the  history  of  two  long  and  silent 
martyrdoms — that  of  the  wife,  longing  to  confess 
her  guilt,  and  that  of  the  other,  who  dare  not 
openly  mourn  her  dead.  Mr.  Phillpotts  has  writ- 
ten nothing  since  The  Children  of  the  Mist  that 
compares  with  this  volume  in  strength  of  theme 
and  careful  character  drawing. 

The  Portreeve,  which  comes  next  in  order  of 
sequence,  is,  in  spite  of  its  obvious  merits,  not  to 
be  rashly  pronounced  an  advance  upon  its  author's 
previous  works.  It  lacks  the  grim  intensity  of 
The  Secret  Woman,  the  lyric  enthusiasm  of  Chil- 
dren of  the  Mist;  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  has  a 
more  even  strength,  a  greater  dignity  that  comes 
from  reserve  force.  Yet,  it  is  like  his  previous 
books  in  being  made  from  material  surprisingly 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  111 

simple  and  primitive.  It  tells  the  story  of  a  young 
couple  estranged  on  the  eve  of  their  marriage, 
because  another  man,  socially  beneath  her,  wants 
the  girl,  and  another  woman,  socially  above  him, 
wants  the  man.  Dodd  Wolverstan  has  worked  his 
way  slowly  up,  from  the  workhouse  to  a  modest 
competence.  At  thirty  he  is  an  independent 
farmer,  holds  the  local  and  ancient  honorary  office 
of  Portreeve,  and  has  just  won  the  promise  of  Ilet 
Yelland  to  marry  him.  But  Primrose  Horn,  only 
daughter  of  the  prosperous  master  of  Bowden 
Farm,  accustomed  always  to  have  what  she  wants, 
has  long  since  determined  that  she  wants  the  Port- 
reeve, and  when  she  learns  that  Abel  Pierce,  un- 
couth and  unprincipled,  will  stop  at  nothing  if 
he  may  win  Ilet  away  from  Wolverstan,  she  enters 
into  a  shameless  plot  with  Abel  to  rake  up  an  old 
and  discredited  scandal  and  put  new  life  into  it 
with  a  few  ingenious  lies.  The  plot  works  with  an 
ease  that  would  fail  to  carry  conviction,  if  Mr. 
Phillpotts  did  not  show,  with  his  accustomed  lucid- 
ity, how  tradition,  religious  bigotry  and  the  easy 
credulity  of  primitive  minds  all  worked  together 
to  separate  and  estrange  the  young  couple.  The 
plot,  however,  succeeds  only  in  part,  and  from 
Primrose  Horn's  point  of  view,  the  less  important 
part.  Convinced  that  her  lover  has  driven  another 
young  woman  through  shame  to  suicide,  Ilet  tries 
to  forget  her  chagrin,  through  a  hasty  marriage 


112  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

with  Abel.  Wolverstan  is  made  of  sterner  stuff. 
Although  Ilet  seems  hopelessly  lost  to  him,  years 
pass  before  he  can  even  bear  the  thought  of  marry- 
ing another  woman,  even  a  woman  so  desirable  as 
Primrose  Horn,  now  in  the  full  ripeness  of  her 
beauty.  But  at  last  a  day  comes  when  the  pro- 
posal she  has  so  long  awaited  is  trembling  on  his 
tongue,  his  arms  are  around  her,  his  kisses  on  her 
lips,  when  a  messenger  arrives  in  hot  haste  with 
the  news  that  Ilet's  husband,  Abel,  has  been 
crushed  in  the  stone  quarries,  and  has  a  confession 
to  make  before  he  dies — a  confession  that  will  be- 
tray Primrose's  unsuspected  treachery.  The  half- 
spoken  proposal  is  destined  never  to  be  finished, 
because  when  next  he  meets  Primrose,  Wolverstan 
and  Ilet  are  once  more  betrothed,  and  when  a  year 
has  passed,  they  are  married.  Primrose  Horn  is 
the  type  of  woman  whose  love  when  scorned  turns 
to  hate ;  and  the  second  and  stronger  half  of  The 
Portreeve  deals  with  her  slow,  deliberate  method 
of  revenge.  Inexorable  as  fate,  she  robs  him,  one 
by  one,  of  his  farm,  his  cattle,  his  local  prestige, 
his  wife's  health,  his  child's  life,  his  ambition,  hope 
and  faith ;  until  at  last  fate  takes  the  guidance  out 
of  her  criminal  hands  and  her  revenge  recoils,  with 
unexpected  grimness,  on  her  own  head. 

The  Whirlwind,  I  am  aware,  has  been  rated 
very  high  by  some  critics.  Mr.  Howells,  for  in- 
stance,   singles    it    out    as    his    personal    favorite 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  113 

choice,  among  all  of  Mr.  Phillpotts's  writings,  and 
does  not  hesitate  to  add  the  high  praise  that  "  it 
has  all  the  mystic  quality  of  Anna  Karenina's 
dream,  in  which  her  husband  and  her  lover  are 
reconciled  in  their  common  possession."  Never- 
theless, I  fail  to  see  by  what  right  The  Whirlwind 
could  be  numbered  among  his  strongest  books.  It 
is  certainly  not  on  a  level  with  The  Children  of  the 
Mist  or  The  Secret  Woman.  There  is  less  spon- 
taneity in  the  character  drawing ;  his  men  and  his 
women  lack  something  of  the  vital  individuality  of 
the  earlier  volumes  ;  they  suggest  something  stereo- 
typed and  worked  over  from  earlier  impressions. 
The  central  plot  is  not  merely  repellent,  but  diffi- 
cult of  acceptance.  Many  personages  have  speak- 
ing parts  in  the  drama,  but  only  three  are  inti- 
mately concerned :  The  Master,  the  Man  and  the 
Man's  Wife.  They  are  rather  closer  to  the  soil, 
more  frankly,  elementally  peasant  types  than  even 
Mr.  Phillpotts  usually  gives  us.  In  Daniel  Brendon 
we  have  a  splendid  specimen  of  physical  manhood, 
a  young  giant  exulting  in  his  strength,  a  true  son 
of  the  "  good  red  earth,"  slow  of  speech  and  of 
thought ;  and  in  Sarah  Jane  Friend,  whom  he  mar- 
ries, he  finds  a  mate  physically  worthy  of  him,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  her  father  is  caretaker  of  an 
abandoned  peat  works  and  that  his  vocation  has 
eaten  into  his  spirit  until  he  lives  and  talks  wholly 
in  peat.     Intellectually,  Sarah  Jane  is  superior, 


114  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

both  to  her  father  and  to  her  husband.  She  has  a 
restless,  inquiring  turn  of  mind;  she  has  her  pri- 
vate doubts  about  many  things,  about  religion, 
about  social  conventions,  about  the  established 
order  of  things.  Nevertheless,  she  is  happy  in  her 
love  for  her  husband,  her  daily  round  of  duties ; 
she  will  never  deliberately  accomplish  her  own  un- 
happiness.  But  it  happens  that  the  Master, 
Woodrow  by  name,  neurotic,  selfish,  doomed  to  a 
short  life  and  aware  of  it,  is  attracted  by  her 
splendid  womanhood  and  determines  to  take  her 
for  himself.  His  is  the  old,  threadbare  argument 
of  Iago,  that  "  He  who  is  robbed,  not  wanting 
what  is  stolen,  let  him  not  know  it,  and  he  is  not 
robbed  at  all."  He  sets  forth  the  terms  of  the 
bargain  to  her  in  all  its  unashamed  nakedness. 
If  she  consents,  then  all  the  great  estate,  all  the 
splendid  piece  of  moorland  where  her  husband  now 
toils  as  little  higher  than  a  serf,  will  become  his 
own,  as  soon  as  the  brief  span  of  its  present 
owner's  life  has  run  its  course.  And  the  woman, 
for  the  sake  of  her  husband's  material  gain,  con- 
sents— that  is,  if  we  can  bring  ourselves  to  accept 
Mr.  Phillpotts's  statement,  a  thing  which  is  diffi- 
cult to  do.  He  should  have  wrought  his  woman  of 
a  coarser  clay,  a  clay  more  closely  akin  to  that  of 
her  own  father,  if  he  wanted  us  to  believe  that  she 
would  suffer  herself  to  be  put  to  so  base  a  service. 
It  has   pleased  some   critics,   among  others,   Mr. 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  115 

Howells,  as  the  above  quotation  implied,  to  read 
into  this  story  a  rather  subtle  explanation,  and 
find  excuse  for  the  woman  on  the  ground  that  she 
was  caught  in  the  vortex  of  a  double  passion,  per- 
plexed and  tormented  by  having  fallen,  almost  un- 
consciously, in  love  with  two  men  at  once.  This 
theory  is  ingenious,  but  over-subtle.  Mr.  Phill- 
potts  usually  is  quite  capable  of  stating  unequivo- 
cally what  he  means.  In  Sons  of  the  Morning  he 
leaves  no  doubt  whatever  that  his  heroine  is  a 
victim  of  precisely  this  dilemma,  of  loving  two 
men  at  once;  but  Honor  Endicott  is  a  wealthy 
landowner,  not  a  peasant;  she  is,  moreover,  a 
highstrung,  introspective  young  person,  all  nerves 
and  temperament,  and  separated  by  an  im- 
measurable distance  from  the  physical  opulence 
of  the  Sarah  Jane  type.  In  his  written  words,  Mr. 
Phillpotts  implied,  in  The  Whirlwind,  nothing 
more  than  a  physical  bargain  and  sale — and  he 
can  usually  be  trusted  to  know  his  peasants. 

It  is  a  temptation  to  linger  unduly  over  each 
separate  volume ;  there  are  several  which  challenge 
attention  and  the  relative  merit  of  which  is  fairly 
open  to  dispute.  There  is,  for  instance,  The 
Mother  of  the  Man,  proclaimed,  not  without 
reason,  as  a  masterpiece  of  tragic  motherhood,  the 
anguish  of  a  woman  torn  between  mother  love  and 
an  overpowering  sense  of  duty.  The  Three  Brothers 
is  still  another  volume  which  has  eager  champions 


116  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

among  the  special  followers  of  Mr.  Phillpotts  ;  and 
undoubtedly  they  have  a  right  to  their  preference 
among  volumes  where  the  quality  is,  year  after 
year,  so  surprisingly  well  sustained.  But,  in  a 
study  like  the  present,  where  it  is  impossible  to  be 
exhaustive,  the  volumes  to  be  dwelt  upon  are  not 
those  built  upon  the  established  formula,  and  so 
well  built  as  to  make  choice  difficult,  but  rather 
those — if  there  are  any  such — which  show  a  touch 
of  novelty,  a  freshness  of  thought  or  of  theme. 
Precisely  this  new  note  is  afforded  by  The  Beacon, 
and  for  that  reason  it  deserves  a  rather  careful 
analysis.  Although  it  still  deals  with  Dartmoor 
folk,  and  is  full  of  the  quaint  humor,  crude  philoso- 
phy and  odd  character  drawing  that  he  has  taught 
his  readers  to  expect  in  almost  too  generous  pro- 
portions, its  central  theme  strikes  an  unwontedly 
modern  note.  While  not  a  suffragette  novel,  it 
deals  with  the  modern,  independent  woman,  the 
woman  who  believes  that  she  has  a  wider  mission 
than  to  perform  the  duties  of  wife  and  mother, 
that  she  should  strive  to  be  an  inspiration  to  her 
husband  and  raise  him  to  a  higher  standard,  a 
broader  and  nobler  outlook  upon  life.  Having 
propounded  his  theme,  Mr.  Phillpotts  does  not 
hesitate  to  make  quite  clear  his  own  utter  disbelief 
in  the  modern  attitude ;  and  he  proceeds  to  set 
forth,  in  intimate  detail,  two  modern  marriages 
that  begin  bright  with  promise  and  are  wrecked 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  117 

simply  because  the  wives  insist  upon  trying  to  re- 
model their  husbands  to  suit  their  own  ideas. 
With  one  of  these  marriages,  that  of  the  village 
innkeeper,  it  is  not  necessary  to  concern  ourselves 
here.  However  well  done,  it  is  none  the  less  of 
subordinate  interest,  part  of  the  background  and 
stage  setting  of  the  other  marriage,  the  real  cen- 
tral theme  of  the  volume.  Lizzie  Denster  is  a 
London  barmaid  who,  tiring  of  city  life,  secures  a 
position  at  the  principal  tavern  in  a  small  Dart- 
moor village,  and  promptly  wins  the  hearts  of  the 
two  most  desirable  suitors  in  the  neighborhood. 
Charles  Trevail  is  nephew  of  old  Abraham  Trevail, 
owner  of  extensive  quarries,  an  old  miser,  hot  of 
temper  and  foul  of  tongue,  and  above  all  a  woman- 
hater.  Reynols  Dunning,  young  Trevail's  rival, 
and  some  years  his  senior,  is  a  man  lacking  in  all 
the  outward  refinements  of  dress  and  speech,  the 
little  courtesies  and  attentions  that  appeal  to 
women ;  but  he  is  a  man  to  be  depended  on,  a 
rugged,  big-souled  man  whose  joy  in  life  would  be 
to  guard  and  fight  for  the  woman  he  loved.  Inci- 
dentally, he  and  old  Abraham  Trevail  have  had  a 
lifelong  feud,  and  the  latter  has  been  heard  to  vow 
that  sooner  or  later  he  will  kill  his  enemy.  Be- 
tween her  two  suitors  Lizzie  wavers.  She  knows 
that  she  can  control  Trevail;  he  is  weak,  and  his 
obvious  need  of  some  one  on  whom  to  lean,  some 
one  to  uplift  him,  appeals  to  her.     Dunning,  on 


118  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

the  other  hand,  she  fears,  because  he  is  masterful ; 
as  his  wife  she  never  would  be  able  to  dominate 
him.  She  docs  not  realize,  Mr.  Phillpotts  tells  us 
parenthetically,  that  of  the  two  tasks,  it  is  far 
harder  to  arouse  a  weak  man  than  to  soften  and 
subdue  a  masterful  one.  And  because  she  does  not 
understand  this,  she  makes  her  first  big  mistake  and 
marries  young  Trevail.  Her  second  and  more  seri- 
ous error  lies  in  trying  to  goad  her  husband  into 
assuming  a  courage  that  he  does  not  possess.  Uncle 
Abraham  and  she  quarrel  violently,  and  a  day 
comes  when,  in  the  heat  of  passion,  he  strikes  her. 
From  this  moment,  her  fixed  purpose  in  life  is  to 
bring  about  a  breach  that  cannot  be  healed,  to 
force  her  husband  to  make  clear  to  his  uncle  that 
he  rejects  his  aid  during  life  and  his  money  after 
he  is  dead.  And  because  she  fails  to  gain  her 
point,  because  she  is  slowly  forced  to  the  convic- 
tion that  Charles  has  again  failed  her,  that  he  is 
constitutionally  too  great  a  coward  ever  to  brave 
his  uncle,  she  leaves  him  at  last  and  goes  to  the 
house  of  Dunning,  the  masterful  man,  ready  to  re- 
main with  him  if  he  will  have  her.  Then  follows 
swift  tragedy.  Footsteps  are  heard  approaching. 
Lizzie,  believing  that  her  husband  has  tracked  her 
to  Dunning's  home,  takes  refuge  in  an  upper  room 
and  listens  in  dumb  anguish  to  the  faint  sound  of 
voices  below.  Then  follow  other  sounds,  then 
silence.     When,  after  long  suspense,  she  ventures 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  119 

to  creep  down,  she  finds  Dunning  alone,  stretched 
upon  the  floor,  with  his  head  crushed  in  by  a  blow 
dealt  from  behind.  The  rest  of  the  volume  deals 
with  the  mystery  of  this  murder,  the  way  in  which 
suspicion  fastens  upon  Charles,  and  the  fixed  con- 
viction of  Lizzie  that  the  real  murderer  is  Uncle 
Abraham,  and  that  if  she  persists  she  will  at  last 
force  his  stubborn  nature  to  the  point  of  con- 
fession. Eventually,  the  woman  attains  her  ob- 
ject, and  saves  her  husband;  but  what  Mr.  Phill- 
potts  makes  clear  beyond  all  question  is  that,  even 
after  she  has  done  all  this,  the  two  cannot  come 
together  again — that  the  union  of  the  masterful 
woman  and  the  weak  husband  is  fundamentally 
wrong,  and  no  amount  of  patching  up  will  remedy 
it. 

Here,  with  this  book,  which  two  years  ago 
sounded  a  new  note  of  promise,  it  is  well  to  take 
leave  of  Mr.  Phillpotts.  The  subsequent  volumes, 
while  they  might  afford  congenial  material  for  a 
paragraph  or  more  of  comment  that  would  be 
neither  eulogy  nor  reproach,  neither  add  nor  sub- 
tract anything  of  importance  from  an  estimate  of 
him  as  a  whole.  Mr.  Phillpotts  is  not,  to-day,  a 
vital  force  in  the  new  fiction.  He  is  a  curious 
blending  of  British  tradition  and  of  the  realistic 
movement  of  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  His  faults 
are  the  faults  of  a  big  and  lasting  tradition — the 
faults  for  which  modern  apologists  are  ever  revert- 


120  EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

ing  to  Fielding  and  Smollett  and  Scott,  to  Dick- 
ens and  Thackeray,  for  precedent  and  justifica- 
tion. In  construction  lies  his  great  weakness ;  his 
cardinal  sins  are  a  rambling  looseness,  an  exas- 
perating tendency  to  digress  and  allow  subordinate 
characters  to  usurp  the  center  of  the  stage  at  their 
own  sweet  will ;  and,  least  pardonable  of  all,  to 
shirk  his  task,  not  once  but  over  and  over  again, 
and  dodge  the  solution  of  some  problem  concerning 
an  immortal  soul,  by  letting  a  foot  stumble  or  a 
finger  slip,  and  precipitating  a  human  carcass 
down  a  sheer  five  hundred  feet  on  to  Dartmoor 
granite.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Phillpotts  has  a 
few  qualities  that  are  admittedly  rare  in  the  school 
of  younger  writers,  any  one  of  whom  could  give 
him  valuable  points  on  the  art  of  construction.  He 
has  an  amazing  keenness  of  vision ;  nothing  in 
physical  life,  not  the  quiver  of  a  leaf  nor  the  glint 
of  a  ray  of  light  escapes  him.  And  he  has  some- 
thing more  important  than  this ;  he  has,  developed 
to  a  rare  extent,  that  invaluable  quality — I  was 
almost  on  the  point  of  calling  it  the  hall-mark — 
of  a  good  realist,  namely,  the  gift  of  being  abso- 
lutely objective.  And  in  this  connection  it  is  in- 
teresting to  quote  briefly  from  a  letter  written  by 
Mr.  Phillpotts  himself  and  published  not  so  very 
long  ago  in  the  Bookman: 

Serious    modern   novelists    are    engaged    upon    this 
high  business  and  have  no  time  to  think  about  them- 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS  121 

selves,  or  air  their  predilections,  hobbies  or  opinions. 
The  men  who  paraded  themselves,  consciously  and 
unconsciously,  were  actuated  by  the  old  values,  held 
in  check  by  religion,  morality  and  a  thousand 
other  conventional  restrictions;  but  we  feel  that  all 
these  things  are  only  so  many  bars  and  hindrances 
to  that  pure,  scientific  curiosity  whose  goal  is  the 
stark  truth  of  human  nature.  An  absolutely  imper- 
sonal attitude  is  what  we  seek.  A  good  surgeon  in 
the  midst  of  a  life  or  death  operation  has  no  time 
to  demonstrate  or  advertise.  And  we,  who  try  to 
make  live  men  and  women — for  novel  writing  is  a 
life  or  death  operation  too — are  similarly  far  too 
concerned  with  the  enormous  difficulties  to  intrude  our 
own  personalities  or  play  showman. 

It  is  this  absolutely  impersonal  attitude  which 
constitutes  Mr.  Phillpotts's  chief  claim  to  recog- 
nition in  contemporary  fiction.  In  certain  other 
respects,  he  is  out  of  the  current  movement.  Eng- 
lish and  American  fiction  both  owe  a  debt  to  the 
best  of  the  French  realists  somewhat  beyond  Mr. 
Phillpotts's  personal  debt  to  them,  and  the  result 
is  that  the  net  impression  left  by  his  works  is  that 
of  a  relatively  greater  diffuseness,  a  lack  of  the 
ruthless  pruning  of  the  Continental  school,  the  in- 
sistence on  perfect  form.  None  the  less,  Mr.  Phill- 
potts  takes  a  high  rank  for  his  deep  interest  and 
profound  understanding  of  human  nature  and  his 
reverence  for  absolute  truth  to  life. 


RUDYARD  KIPLING 

This  is  not  an  auspicious  time  for  adding  to  the 
already  over-abundant  accumulation  of  critical 
studies  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
is  still  too  early  to  sum  him  up  with  an  assured 
finality ;  and  on  the  other,  although  we  may  still 
hope  that  he  has  many  a  surprise  yet  in  store, 
many  a  unique  product  of  his  mature  powers,  the 
fact  remains  that  the  day  when  one  was  compelled 
to  write  of  him  exuberantly,  in  the  sheer  joy  of 
speculating  on  what  his  erratic  and  undisciplined 
genius  would  do  next,  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Con- 
sequently, a  chapter  on  Mr.  Kipling  at  this  time 
and  place  has  just  one  excuse;  that  he  is  too  im- 
posing a  figure  among  contemporary  English 
story  tellers  to  be  omitted ;  his  inclusion  will  be 
taken  for  granted.  Yet,  beyond  some  minor  re- 
adjustments, beyond  attempting  to  point  out  a 
safe  mid-channel  between  the  relative  claims  of  the 
earlier  and  the  later  Kipling,  there  is  really  very 
little  that  is  new  to  say  about  an  author  who  has 
intrenched  himself  in  the  hearts  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  more  widely  and  more  solidly  than 
any  other  writer  since  Dickens — who,  more  than 

122 


RUDYARI)  KIPLING 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  123 

any  other,  has  enriched  the  language  of  the  people 
with  words  and  phrases  that  have  become  part  of 
our  verbal  medium  of  exchange,  the  legal  tender 
of  our  current  speech. 

A  great  deal  has  been  idly  written  about  the 
"  Decline  of  Kipling,"  about  "  Kipling  at  the 
Crossroads,"  about  the  contrast  between  the  old 
Kipling  and  the  new.  The  plain  truth  is  that,  ex- 
cepting for  a  widened  horizon,  an  awakened  under- 
standing, the  author  of  Traffics  and  Discoveries 
and  of  Rewards  and  Fairies  is  the  same  old  Kip- 
ling of  Soldiers  Three  and  Barrack-Room  Ballads, 
and  that  he  is  so  because  he  has  always  been  the 
new  Kipling,  always  doing  the  strange  and  unex- 
pected, always  refusing  to  be  definitely  labeled  as 
the  story  teller  of  India,  the  self-appointed  lau- 
reate of  Tommy  Atkins,  the  Anglo-Saxon  Aesop. 
There  are  some  geniuses  too  big  to  run  smoothly  in 
a  beaten  track.  That  Mr.  Kipling  has  grown  and 
broadened  with  the  passage  of  years  needs  no  ar- 
gument. To  take  the  measure  of  that  growth, 
one  has  only  to  compare  any  one  of  the  Depart- 
mental Ditties  with  such  a  poem  as  "  The  Truce  of 
the  Bear,"  or  "  The  White  Man's  Burden." 

It  follows,  quite  naturally,  that  critics  of  the 
academic  sort  feel  driven  to  explain  the  source  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  wide  appeal,  to  analyze  his  works 
and  prove  by  the  careful  logic  of  a  proposition 
from  Euclid,  wherein  his  greatness  lies.    They  try 


124  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

to  show  that  in  his  earliest  as  well  as  in  his  latest 
writings  we  already  have  a  man  of  fully  developed 
purpose,  self-appointed  spokesman  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  champion  of  Imperialism,  discipline, 
law  and  order.  Now,  it  is  quite  true  that  you  can 
go  back  as  far  as  you  please  in  Mr.  Kipling's 
writings,  back  even  to  those  fugitive  and  inconse- 
quential pieces  collected  in  Abaft  the  Funnel,  and 
find  in  them  many  a  germ  idea  which  was  destined 
later  to  bear  big  fruit.  But  this  you  can  do  with 
almost  any  man  of  Kipling's  mental  stature.  To 
take  a  single  example,  Zola's  Lettres  de  Jeunesse 
show  in  embryo  almost  every  one  of  the  ideas  that 
later  became  with  him  articles  of  faith,  corner- 
stones of  his  biggest  achievements.  But  to  claim 
that  Zola,  as  a  raw  collegian,  had  already  fully 
mapped  out  his  Quatre  Evangiles  or  that  the 
author  of  The  Rescue  of  Pluffles  had  already  for- 
mulated his  philosophy  of  life,  is  to  utter  nonsense. 
Among  the  products  of  Mr.  Kipling's  mature 
powers  is  a  story  which  has  with  justice  been  much 
admired,  The  Ship  That  Found  Herself.  It  nar- 
rates, you  will  remember,  the  first  trans-Atlantic 
voyage  of  the  new  ship  Dimbula,  and  tells  how  from 
the  weighing  of  the  anchor  and  the  first  turn  of 
the  screw  there  began  a  clamor,  an  insistent  babel 
of  voices,  a  discord  of  each  and  every  part  of  the 
ship,  airing  their  grievances,  blaming  their  neigh- 
bors,  the   rivets    complaining   to    the   plates,    the 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  125 

shaft  denouncing  the  propeller,  one  and  all  con- 
sumed by  an  over-weening  egotism.  And  then,  fin- 
ally, one  day  a  new,  deep  voice  booms  out  calmly 
but  commandingly,  "  What  is  all  this  noise 
about?  "  And  when  the  thousand  plates  and  rivets, 
planks  and  beams  wonderingly  chorus  the  question, 
"  Who  are  you?  "  the  answer  comes,  "  Why,  I  am 
the  ship  Dimbula,  of  course,  and  I  have  never  been 
anything  else,  only  I  didn't  quite  know  it — that, 
and  a  good  deal  of  a  fool."  Now,  this  story  is 
usually  interpreted,  and  justly,  as  an  inimitable 
allegory  of  the  awakening  of  civic  consciousness  in 
a  community,  the  realization  of  organized 
strength.  Yet  it  is  equally  legitimate  to  apply  it 
to  an  individual  instead  of  a  mob — even  to  apply 
it  to  Mr.  Kipling  himself.  From  the  beginning, 
certain  of  his  pet  hobbies  and  aversions  had  been 
insistently  crying  out  in  everything  that  he  wrote, 
vociferously  clamoring  to  be  heard,  drowning  each 
other,  working  at  cross  purposes,  not  yet  con- 
scious that,  taken  together,  they  made  up  a  rather 
remarkable  personality.  And  then,  all  of  a  sud- 
den, Mr.  Kipling  seems  one  day  to  have  awakened, 
stretched  himself  and  announced  in  calm  surprise, 
"  Why,  I  am  Rudyard  Kipling,  of  course,  and  I 
never  have  been  anything  else: — only  I  was  not 
precisely  aware  of  it." 

This  way  of  looking  at  Mr.  Kipling  was  forced 
upon  me  recently  as  the  result  of  having  tried  the 


126  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

experiment  of  rereading  in  wholesale  quantities 
all  of  his  earlier  volumes,  Under  the  Deodars, 
Mine  Own  People,  The  Phantom  Rickshaw — re- 
newing acquaintance  with  a  large  majority  of  these 
stories  after  an  interval  of  nearly  a  score  of  years. 
The  old  glamour  was  still  there,  yet  what  im- 
pressed me  chiefly  in  thus  going  back  to  them  was 
a  lack  of  unity,  an  absence  of  any  common  purpose, 
a  suggestion  of  experiments  in  a  hundred  different 
directions,  as  of  a  man  groping  for  his  path.  The 
truth  is  that  Mr.  Kipling  was  cursed  with  a  pre- 
cocious talent,  a  marvelous  facility  which  would 
have  been  disastrous  to  a  writer  of  smaller  caliber. 
Fate  had  played  into  his  hands  by  giving  him  an 
exotic  setting  of  unrivaled  brilliance,  an  oppor- 
tunity for  pyrotechnic  bursts  of  verbal  color, 
through  which  we  glimpse  strange  dramas  and  the 
clash  of  alien  races.  He  had,  however,  the  natural 
instinct  of  the  story  teller.  He  grew  up  in  a  land 
where  this  instinct  is  bred  in  the  bone,  and  where 
many  of  the  oldest  tales  of  the  world,  which  have 
since  migrated  to  every  civilized  country,  were 
first  slowly  wrought  into  shape,  gathering  perfec- 
tion as  they  were  passed  down  by  word  of  mouth 
through  uncounted  generations.  How  much  of 
this  native  gift  of  story-telling  Mr.  Kipling  may 
have  unconsciously  assimilated  in  boyhood  it  would 
be  interesting  to  know;  at  least,  there  is  much  of 
the   same   laborious   process   of   endless   polishing 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  127 

shown  in  the  Jungle  Books  and  the  Just-So  Stories. 
But  in  his  early  years  he  did  not  always  take  time 
to  shape  his  stories ;  they  impress  one,  many  of 
them,  as  having  largely  written  themselves.  He 
was  often  content  to  tell  his  stories  in  the  first 
person,  not  coming  in  directly  as  a  participator, 
but  merely  as  a  witness,  recording  certain  events 
glimpsed  in  passing,  things  which  happened,  in  a 
certain  way,  not  because  it  was  inevitable  that 
they  should  have  happened  that  way,  but  just  be- 
cause they  did  so  happen.  Now,  the  bigger  type 
of  story,  the  type  which  Mr.  Kipling  himself  has 
given  us  in  abundance  in  his  riper  years,  is  that 
which  leaves  the  conviction  that  it  was  inevitable, 
that  it  had  to  happen  in  a  certain  way,  because  the 
people  in  it  had  such-and-such  natures  and  were 
therefore  foreordained  to  act  precisely  so.  In  his 
earlier  stories  he  was  inordinately  fond  of  invoking 
Fate  to  cut  short  a  tangle,  thus  begging  the  main 
question,  but  securing  a  touch  of  sensational 
horror.  Thus,  in  The  Tertium  Quid,  a  prospective 
elopement  is  cut  short,  not  by  any  deliberate  ac- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  man  and  woman  involved, 
but  by  a  catastrophe  due  to  the  breaking  away  of 
a  rain-washed  embankment ;  and  the  man  makes  no 
answer  to  the  woman's  despairing  cry,  because  he 
is  lying  underneath  his  horse,  nine  hundred  feet 
below  the  cliff,  "  spoiling  a  patch  of  Indian 
corn."     And  again,  even  in  the  fine  artistry  of 


128  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  we  realize,  that,  as  a 
protest  against  racial  intermarriage,  the  argu- 
ment is  weakened  by  the  form  of  death  both  of 
mother  and  of  child — because  it  is  impossible  to 
hold  the  mixed  marriage  responsible  for  the  fact 
that  an  epidemic  of  fever  and  of  cholera  happen  to 
choose  this  particular  woman  and  child  among  the 
victims. 

Perfect  self-assurance  sometimes  covers  a  mul- 
titude of  sins ;  and  the  assurance  of  Mr.  Kipling 
in  those  earlier  days  was  nothing  if  not  perfect. 
He  consistently  assumed  a  studied  pose,  the  pose 
of  the  man  for  whom  life  contains  no  surprises, 
the  weary  cynic  who  is  quite  sure  that  he  knows 
precisely  what  is  wrong  with  the  world  and  smiles 
with  the  infinite  superiority  of  vast  experience  over 
the  follies  of  potentates  and  of  governments.  He 
was  still  separated  by  half  a  lifetime  from  the 
mature  Kipling  who  has  learned  to  express  a 
deeper  wisdom  in  stories  fitted  to  the  understand- 
ing of  little  children.  He  had  not  quite  yet  out- 
grown that  bumptiousness  of  youth  which  thinks 
to  prove  itself  manly  by  professing  a  scorn  of 
young  women.  It  is  this  feature,  among  others,  no 
doubt,  which  was  so  keenly  felt  by  Henry  James 
when  he  wrote  with  one  of  his  inimitable  flashes  of 
comparison  that  Mr.  Kipling's  "  extreme  youth  is 
indeed  what  I  may  call  his  window-bar — the  sup- 
port on  which  he  somewhat  rowdily  leans  while  he 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  129 

looks  down  at  the  human  scene  with  his  pipe  in  his 
teeth." 

Yet,  with  all  their  shortcomings,  their  auda- 
cious disregard  of  technique,  which  has  made  the 
"  splendid  carelessness  "  of  Mr.  Kipling  a  favor- 
ite phrase  for  critics  to  conjure  with,  those  stories 
caught  the  imagination  of  the  public  with  a  swift- 
ness and  a  permanance  almost  without  parallel. 
People  did  not  realize  that  even  while  they  were 
reading  the  rapid  output  of  American  and  Eng- 
lish reprints  of  earlier  Indian  volumes,  the  author 
had  already,  in  a  measure,  outgrown  the  mood 
that  begot  them,  that  his  eye  was  opening  upon  a 
wider  horizon.  In  literature  as  well  as  in  life,  no 
man  can  serve  two  masters — no  man  with  Kip- 
ling's rugged  sincerity  and  sledge-hammer  earnest- 
ness can  keep  one  creed  of  politics,  morals  and 
religion  for  his  verse,  and  another  for  his  prose. 
It  has  never  been  adequately  pointed  out  how 
closely  the  dominant  moods  of  Kipling's  poems  at 
any  epoch  have  found  an  echo  in  his  other  writ- 
ings. "  Mandalay,"  for  instance,  you  will  find  al- 
ready blocked  out  in  the  rough  in  Letters  from 
the  East,  down  to  the  Burmah  girl,  and  the  che- 
root, and  the  hathis  piling  teak.  "  The  Truce  of 
the  Bear  "  was  the  product  of  the  same  mind  that 
was  brooding  in  Kim  over  the  "  great  game  "  of 
strategy  played  in  India  against  the  standing 
menace  to  the  northern  frontier.     And  the  Kip- 


130  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

ling  of  later  years,  absorbed  in  dreams  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  supremacy  and  voicing  in  dynamic  verse 
the  pent-up  popular  opinions  of  a  nation,  could 
not,  if  he  would,  keep  these  thoughts  out  of  the 
short  stories  which  comprise  his  volume  of 
Traffics  and  Discoveries.  That  is  why  a  reader, 
here  and  there,  who  is  not  interested  in  the  des- 
tinies of  England,  or  the  shortcomings  of  her 
army  and  navy,  or  the  ethics  of  her  struggle  with 
the  Boers,  but  who  did  care  very  much  for  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  Kipling's  India,  with  its  palm 
trees  and  its  sunshine  and  its  dearth  of  the  Ten 
Commandments,  not  unnaturally  lays  down  such  a 
volume  as  Traffics  and  Discoveries  with  a  keen 
sense  of  disillusion. 

Nevertheless,  when,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  the 
life-work  of  Rudyard  Kipling  comes  to  be  weighed 
in  the  balance  in  its  entirety,  it  is  safe  to  predict 
that  the  volumes  which  will  necessarily  receive  a 
detailed  consideration,  will  not  be  Soldiers  Three 
nor  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills  nor  Barrack- 
Room  Ballads;  they  will  be,  if  one  may  venture 
upon  what  Mr.  James  calls  the  luxury  of  prophe- 
sying— the  Jungle  Books,  as  a  unique  childhood 
classic,  Kim,  as  the  author's  highest  attainment 
in  fiction,  and  The  Five  Nations,  as  an  apotheosis 
of  Anglo-Saxon  supremacy  and  a  most  interesting 
human  document  into  the  bargain.  Even  in  an 
article  on  Mr.  Kipling  as  a  story  teller,  it  is  im- 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  131 

possible  to  pass  these  poems  over  in  silence,  for 
they  form  the  key  to  so  much  of  his  later  prose. 
They  stand  as  a  sort  of  personal  creed,  a  con- 
fession of  faith  in  the  British  Empire.  Mr.  Kip- 
ling has  an  unfaltering  belief  in  the  divine  right  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  to  inherit  the  earth,  and  in  this 
spirit  he  dedicated  these  poems  to  the  "  Five  Free 
Nations,"  the  mother  Island  and  the  Colonies  that 
already  encircle  the  globe.  Probably  no  other 
poet  has  so  curiously  blended  the  spirit  of  Impe- 
rialism with  such  genuine  democracy.  It  is  not 
merely  the  prerogative  of  the  Anglo-Saxon — The 
White  Man  par  excellence — to  overrun  the  four 
quarters  of  the  globe,  sword  in  hand — it  is  his 
duty,  the  "  White  Man's  Burden,"  to  conquer  and 
civilize  perforce  "  the  new-court,  sullen  peoples, 
half-devil  and  half-child."  No  poet  of  Homeric 
days  ever  sang  the  glories  of  war  with  more  whole- 
souled  enthusiasm.  The  soldier's  life  is  "  the  lord- 
liest life  on  earth,"  and  when  he  writes  of  it,  if 
only  in  a  "  Service  Song,"  his  very  meter  takes  on  a 
martial  spirit ;  one  hears,  behind  and  through  the 
words,  the  sound  of  bugle  calls,  the  tramp,  tramp, 
tramp  of  many  men,  the  dominant  note  of  fife  and 
drum  that  set  the  reader's  blood  tingling  and  his 
feet  to  beating  time  with  contagious  enthusiasm 
as  he  reads. 

Peace,  Mr.  Kipling  teaches,  is  to  be  had  only  at 
the  price  of  war ;  army  and  navy  are  the  bulwarks 


132  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

that  the  forefathers  reared  for  England's  protec- 
tion, like  the  dikes  that  the  Hollanders  reared  to 
keep  out  the  sea — they  can  be  maintained  only  at 
the  price  of  eternal  vigilance : 

Now  we  can  only  wait  till  the  day,  wait  and  apportion 

our  shame ! 
These  are  the  dikes  our  fathers  left,  but  we  would 

not  look  at  the  same. 
Time  and  again  were  we  warned  of  the  dikes,  time 

and  again  we  delayed; 
Now,   it  may   fall,  we  have   slain  our  sons,   as   our 

fathers  we  have  betrayed. 

And  again,  in  "  The  Islanders," — that  scathing 
and  it  may  be  intemperate  indictment  of  "  flan- 
neled  fools  "  and  "  muddied  oafs," — he  reiterates 
this  same  idea  of  neglected  duty  and  trust  be- 
trayed.    Civilization,  he  insists, 

.  .  .  was  not  made  with  the  mountains,  it  is  not  one 

with  the  deep, 
Men,  not  gods,  devised  it,  Men,  not  gods,  must  keep, 
Men,  not  children,  not  servants,  or  kinsfolk  called 

from  afar, 
But  each  man  born  in  the  island  broke  to  the  matter 

of  war. 

Yet,  for  all  his  imperialism,  for  all  that  he  is  the 
self-constituted  laureate  of  "  The  Five  Free  Na- 
tions that  are  peers  among  their  peers," — that  he 
hails  the  Commonwealth  of  Australia  as  the  Young 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  133 

Queen,  and  Canada  as  Our  Lady  of  the  Snows — 
he  is  nevertheless  at  heart  the  poet  of  the  barrack- 
room  still,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term — the  poet 
who  sings  the  praises  of  the  rank  and  file,  in  the 
armies  of  peace  as  well  as  in  the  armies  of  war. 
In  the  old  days,  it  was  "  not  a  Duke  nor  Earl  nor 
yet  a  Viscount,"  whom  he  chose  to  sing;  it  was 
plain  Mr.  Thomas  Atkins.  And  still  to-day,  in 
poems  like  "  Pharaoh  and  the  Serjeant,"  it  is  not 
the  "big,  brass  general,"  it  is  the  neglected  and 
forgotten  sergeant,  "  the  man  in  khaki  kit  who  can 
handle  men  a  bit,  with  his  bedding  labeled  Sergeant 
Whatsisname."  From  first  to  last,  Mr.  Kipling 
has  shown  unmeasured  scorn  for  bureaucracy,  the 
red  tape  of  officialdom,  the  tinsel  glitter  of  empty 
titles.  There  is  nothing  more  eminently  healthy 
in  all  his  writings  than  the  admirable  sanity,  the 
unmistakable  earnestness  with  which  he  recognizes 
honest  work,  "  the  simple,  sheer,  sufficing,  sane 
result  of  labor  spent,"  and  gives  credit  where  it 
belongs,  to 

.  .  .  the  men  who  merely  do  the  work 
For  which  they  draw  the  wage, — 

Men  like  to  gods  that  do  the  work 
For  which  they  draw  the  wage. 

There  are  other  poems  which  do  not  need  to  be 
separately  proclaimed — poems  like  "  The  Truce  of 
the  Bear,"   "The   Islanders,"   "The   Lesson"— 


134  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

poems  that  are  bound  to  be  read  and  remembered 
as  long  as  the  events  that  they  commemorate,  be- 
cause they  are  not  poems  alone,  but  political  pam- 
phlets in  verse,  audacious  indictments  of  existing 
conditions,  that  passed  from  lip  to  lip  with  the 
speed  of  wings  and  refused  to  be  forgotten.  In 
spite  of  his  verbal  audacities,  Mr.  Kipling  has  at 
heart  always  been  something  of  an  epicure  in  his 
use  of  words.  He  appreciates,  to  a  nicety,  their 
ultimate  shade  of  meaning,  he  knows  how  to  wring 
from  them  their  uttermost  force  and  energy. 
Rugged  strength  was  what  he  wanted  first  of  all 
in  these  poems  of  big,  vital,  ethical  problems — 
and  he  obtained  it  with  a  simplicity  of  word  and 
phrase  that  one  must  marvel  at  while  one  reads. 
Not  that  his  later  verse  is  altogether  lacking  in 
his  old-time  verbal  daring.  Such  a  poem  as  "  The 
Sea  and  the  Hills  "  is  full  of  curious  alliterations, 
words  forced  into  strange  and  unexpected  partner- 
ships, sonorous  syllables  following  one  another 
with  a  rush  and  tumble  and  cumulative  force  of 
many  waves: 

Who  hath  desired  the  Sea?     The  sight  of  salt  water 

unbounded — 
The  heave  and  the  salt  and  the  hurl  and  the  crash 

of  the  comber  wind-hounded? 

But  for  the  most  part  the  effective  lines  of  the 
later  poems,  the  lines  which  linger  and  echo  in  the 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  135 

memory  are  simple  Anglo-Saxon  lines,  monosylla- 
bic, almost  prose.  Some  of  them  have  already 
passed  into  circulation,  been  added  to  the  current 
coin  of  English  speech.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
of  the  wisdom  or  the  justice  of  such  poems  as 
"  The  Lesson  "  or  "  The  Islanders,"  there  can  be 
nothing  but  admiration  for  the  splendid  audacity 
which  inspired  them. 

Just  as  it  is  impossible  to  read  "  The  Truce  of 
the  Bear  "  without  thinking  of  Kim,  in  the  same 
way  it  is  impossible  to  consider  Kim  apart  from  its 
relation  to  the  Jungle  Books;  for  these  two  books 
are  bound  together  by  such  a  logical  sequence  that 
it  is  strange  so  little  emphasis  has  even  yet  been 
laid  upon  their  obvious  relation  to  each  other. 
Like  his  own  British  soldier  in  "  Mandalay,"  Mr. 
Kipling  obviously  felt,  for  many  years,  a  lingering 
nostalgia  for  the  Orient :  "  If  you've  'eard  the 
East  a-callin',  why,  you  won't  'eed  nothin'  else." 
He  industriously  tried  to  heed  other  things,  the 
fishing  banks  of  Newfoundland,  the  school-boy  life 
in  England,  the  veldt  and  kopje  of  South  Africa. 
Yet  all  the  while  he  was  plainly  haunted  by  a  per- 
sistent, yet  elusive  desire  to  write  a  book,  a  big 
book,  embodying  the  life  of  India  as  a  whole,  with 
all  its  wonderful  maze  of  conflicting  beliefs  and 
superstitions  and  races  and  castes. 

Every  reader  of  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills 
must   remember  Wressley  of  the  Foreign  Office, 


136  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

poor  Wressley  who  wrote  a  book  on  India,  with  his 
heart  and  soul  at  the  end  of  his  pen,  catching  and 
analyzing  Rajahs,  and  "tracing  them  up  into  the 
mists  of  Time  and  Beyond,"  for  ten  hours  a  day, 
and  in  the  end  his  book  was  a  Book,  because  he 
had  put  into  it  not  only  his  vast  special  knowl- 
edge, but,  "  a  spirit,  a  poetry,  an  inwoven  human 
touch  which  are  beyond  all  special  knowledge." 
Wressley  did  all  this  for  the  sake  of  "  one  frivolous 
little  girl,"  Tillie  Venner.  Do  you  happen  to  re- 
member her  summing  up  of  the  book?  "  Oh,  your 
book?  It's  all  about  those  howwid  wajahs.  I 
didn't  understand  it." 

Now,  when  at  last  it  came  Mr.  Kipling's  turn  to 
write  another  book  on  India,  it  also  proved  to  be 
"  a  book  which  is  a  Book."  It  was  written,  if  ever 
any  book  was,  with  heart  and  soul  and  mind  at  the 
end  of  his  pen,  and  inspired  with  that  all-seeing 
comprehension  that  makes  its  pages  luminous ;  and 
no  sooner  had  it  appeared  than  a  certain  class  of 
critics,  like  so  many  Tillie  Venners,  began  to  say, 
under  varied  forms  and  twists  of  phrase,  "  Oh, 
your  book?  It's  all  about  rajahs,  and  babus,  and 
lamas,  and  we  can't  understand  it."  But  here  the 
analogy  ceases,  for  Tillie  Venner  not  only  hurt 
Wressley,  but  was  the  moral  death  of  him ;  while 
no  amount  of  unfair  criticism  stayed  Mr.  Kipling 
in  his  chosen  course  nor  lessened  the  worth  of 
what  is  still  his  finest  achievement. 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  137 

The  central  thought  which  was  destined  eventu- 
ally to  beget  Kim  seems  to  have  taken  shape 
slowly,  and  to  have  deterred,  perhaps  even  over- 
awed Mr.  Kipling,  by  its  magnitude.  It  seemed 
at  first  too  big  ever  to  be  embodied  in  a  picture  of 
real  life,  and  accordingly  his  first  attempts  at  in- 
terpreting it  took  the  form  of  fable,  just  as  the 
Hindoos  themselves,  centuries  ago,  chose  to  em- 
body their  wisdom  in  the  beast  tales  of  the  Hito- 
padeca  or  the  Katasaritsagara.  To  those  who 
read  beneath  the  lines,  the  Jungle  Books  are  far 
more  than  a  new  childhood  classic.  They  are  the 
life  of  modern  India,  told  in  allegory,  and  in  Ka 
and  Bagheera  and  all  the  rest  we  have  the  types 
of  native  life,  with  its  stored-up  wisdom  of  old, 
primeval  instincts,  its  childlike  simplicity  of  out- 
look upon  the  present-day  world.  The  same  con- 
ception which  gave  us  the  Jungle  Books  took  final 
shape  in  Kim,  and  to  those  who  enjoy  such  lit- 
erary analysis  I  suggest  the  task  of  following  out 
the  analogy  between  the  animal  personages  in  the 
former  and  the  chief  actors  in  the  latter  book. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  Kim,  this  story  of  the 
Little  Friend  of  All  the  World,  is  not  destined 
ever  to  be  popular  in  the  broad  sense  in  which 
Without  Benefit  of  Clergy  and  The  Man  Who 
Would  Be  King  are  popular.  It  is  too  especial, 
too  profound,  too  esoteric.  But  those  to  whom  it 
appeals  and  who  have  come  under  its  spell  find 


138  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

some    difficulty    in    speaking    of    it    temperately. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  India  is  there  in  its 
pages — the  whole  of  India  as  it  is  to-day,  with  all 
its  numberless  and  intricate  substrata   of  mixed 
faiths    and  languages   and    races,    reaching   back 
through  the  uncounted  years   to   the   time   when 
those  first  and  unknown  Aryan  pioneers  pushed 
their  ways  southward  through  the  mountain  passes 
to  find  a  resting  place  beside  the  waters  of  the 
upper  Indus.     There  is  something  of  epic  bigness 
in  the  book,  the  comprehensiveness  of  view  that 
makes  the  petty  things  of  life  so  small  and  yet 
throws  those  minute  details  which  really  count  into 
such  luminous  relief.     The  India  of  Kipling  is  so 
manifold  that  it  is  not  easy  to  grasp.     There  is 
the  superficial  Anglo-Indian  side,  with  its  social 
functions  and  its  Mrs.  Hauksbees,  and  its  "  Res- 
cues of  Pluffles,"  and  the  like;  there  is  the  obvious 
native  life,  with  its  sunshine  and  its  palm  trees 
and  its  tinkly  temple  bells — the  side  to  which  the 
Ortherises    and   the   Mulvaneys   get   a   good   deal 
nearer  than  all  the  Mrs.  Hauksbees  and  Captain 
Gadsbys  ever  do.     Back  of  this,  layer  upon  layer, 
extends  the  personal,  intimate,  unrevealed  life  of 
the  Hindoo,  the  result  of  untold  generations,  the 
sum  total  of  instincts  and  traditions  and  stored- 
up  wisdom  of  past  ages,  the  purport  of  which  the 
average    Occidental    mind    can    scarcely    fathom. 
And  lastly,  there  is  that  stirring,  vital  side,  the 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  139 

secret  conflict  between  East  and  West  now  going 
on  silently  but  surely — the  Great  Game,  as  Mr. 
Kipling  calls  it — the  game  that  is  being  played 
night  and  day  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  secret  service, 
which  stretches  in  a  vast  reticulation,  like  a 
gigantic  checkerboard,  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  peninsula. 

The  way  in  which  Mr.  Kipling  has  chosen  to  set 
this  vast,  complex  picture  before  us  is  little  less 
than  a  stroke  of  genius.    It  was  too  big  to  be  given 
in   its   entirety ;   so   he   has    shown   only    a   frag- 
ment, a  cross-section,  as  it  were,  seen  through  the 
eyes  of  a  boy,  a  poor  little  waif  called  Kim.    It  has 
pleased  some  reviewers  to  compare  Kim  with  the 
little  drummer  boys  in  The  Drums  of  the  Fore- 
and-Aft.    Personally,  I  fail  to  see  the  resemblance. 
Kim  is,  in  spirit,  a  foster-brother  of  Mowgli,  a  sort 
of  missing  link  between  the  primitiveness  of  the 
East  and  the  civilization  of  the  West.     He  is  the 
son  of  a  certain  Kimball  O'Hara,  one  time  Color 
Sergeant    of    the    Irish    regiment    known    as    the 
Mavericks,  who  had  married  a  nurse-maid  in  his 
colonel's  family,  and  after  her  death  had  gone  the 
pace  and  met  the  end  of  many  another  broken- 
down  white  man  in  India.     Kim  had  been  adopted 
by  a  half-caste  woman  in  the  bazaar  of  Lahore. 
He  had  grown  up,  not  merely  a  la  grace  de  Dieu, 
but     under    co-operative    protection    of    several 
hundred  native  gods,  to  all  of  whom  he  extended 


140  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

polite  recognition,  without  standing  in  awe  of  any 
of  them.    Kim's  father  had  left  papers  which  would 
have  gained  him  protection  either  from  the  regi- 
ment,   or    from   the  Jadrogher  or   local   masonic 
lodge;  but  instead  of  using  them,  Kim  wore  these 
papers  in  a  leather  amulet  case  around  his  neck, 
and  "  carefully  avoided  missionaries  and   white  men 
of  serious  aspect,  who  asked  who  he  was  and  what 
he  did."    The  whole  story,  to  put  it  briefly,  deals 
with  the  manner  in  which  this  small  boy  of  no  ap- 
parent   account,    who    has    the    training    of    the 
Oriental  grafted  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  West, 
is  gradually  prepared  to  become  one  of  the  cog- 
wheels in  that  complicated  mechanism  which  goes 
to  make  up  the  Great  Game.    Of  the  details  of  the 
story  and  the  motley  crowd  of  personages   that 
take  part  in  it,  this  is  hardly  the  place  to  speak. 
They  are  figures  which,  taken  out  of  their  setting, 
are  unintelligible  to  the  Western  mind.     Indeed, 
the  danger  is  that  the  best  of  them,  even  the  old 
Thibetan  Lama,  will  not  be  understood  beyond  a 
certain  point.     This  venerable  figure,  from  his  far- 
off  lamasery  in  the  mountains  of  Thibet,  who  has 
come    on    his    hopeless    quest    in     search    of    a 
sacred   river,  the   river  that   gushed   forth  where 
Buddha's    arrow    once   fell,   is    a    combination   of 
stored-up  wisdom  and  child-like  simplicity  that  is 
likely  to  be  wholly  misunderstood  by  many  a  West- 
ern reader.     There  is  something  about  his  vener- 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  141 

able  dignity  that  is  reminiscent  of  certain  passages 
in  King  Lear.  But  one  might  go  on  indefinitely 
speculating  about  the  significance  of  this  book  and 
of  its  separate  characters.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  as  a  whole  it  symbolizes  the  gulf  which  sep- 
arates Orient  and  Occident. 

To  discuss  in  detail  any  other  volume  by  Mr. 
Kipling,  after  Kim,  would  be  to  indulge  in  an  anti- 
climax. There  are  some  who  find  a  special  merit 
in  the  mysticism  of  stories  like  Wireless  and  They; 
there  are  others  who  exalt  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill  to 
the  position  of  his  crowning  achievment — a  posi- 
tion which,  if  books  could  be  supposed  to  have 
feelings,  would  sadly  embarrass  it  to  live  up  to. 
But  if  we  forget  for  a  moment  the  question  of 
relative  greatness,  and  speak  only  of  individual 
preferences,  then  there  are  a  score  of  titles  that 
clamor  for  a  passing  word.  Personally,  without 
being  blind  to  its  numerous  shortcomings,  I  must 
confess  that  The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys  is  even  yet 
numbered  among  my  minor  literary  vices.  It  is 
crude,  it  is  very  young,  yet  it  has  its  big  moments 
— that,  for  instance,  in  "  The  Tents  of  Kedar," 
where  Mrs.  Hcrriott  drops  her  light  tone  and  says 
tensely,  "  My  God,  Pip !  I  was  a  good  woman 
once."  Mr.  Kipling  must  have  shaken  hands  with 
himself  when  he  wrote  that  line.  The  Mulvaney 
stories  contain  probably  a  large  percentage  of  the 
best  of  his  early  stories ;  it  is  my  own  loss  that, 


142  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

with  the  exception  of  The  Courting  of  Dinah 
Shadd,  they  leave  me  cold.  The  Mark  of  the  Beast 
and  At  the  End  of  the  Passage  miss  their  goal,  like 
a  spiritual  seance  after  you  know  the  trick — but 
the  atmosphere  of  the  second  of  these  stories,  with 
its  heat  and  loneliness,  of  the  kind  that  drives  one 
mad,  is  brutally  real — it  can  hardly  be  read  with- 
out a  sense  of  suffocation,  and  the  burn  of  prickly 
heat  breaking  out  all  over  one.  On  the  other 
hand,  Beyond  the  Pale,  On  the  City  Wall,  Without 
Benefit  of  Clergy,  are  among  the  great  short 
stories  of  the  world.  They  bear  the  test  of  un- 
counted re-readings,  they  wear  well. 

And  side  by  side  with  them  belong  certain 
stories  of  his  mature  period ;  stories  of  widely  dif- 
ferent substance,  the  product  of  different  influ- 
ences, yet  refusing  to  be  ignored,  even  in  the  hasti- 
est summary  of  his  works.  In  this  choice  I  find 
myself  passing  over  the  stories  which,  in  popular 
estimation,  are  his  most  characteristic,  the  stories 
born  of  his  ability  to  see  the  poetry  of  mechanical 
power.  Undoubtedly,  he  has  accomplished  more 
than  one  striking  tour  de  force  in  this  direction: 
he  stands  alone  in  his  ability  to  see  the  drama 
latent  in  the  motor  car,  the  railway  engine,  the 
rapid  fire  of  modern  armament.  The  red  glow  of  a 
furnace,  the  wild  gyrations  of  a  broken  piston  rod, 
are  to  him  as  much  a  part  of  the  vital,  tingling  life 
of  to-day  as  the  flush  on  a  woman's  cheek  or  the 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  143 

contortions  of  a  man  in  his  death  agony.  Through 
most  of  his  later  stories  he  makes  us  hear  the 
throb  of  machinery,  the  hiss  of  escaping  steam,  the 
mighty  drone  of  huge  propellers ;  and,  as  a  symbol 
of  the  encroachment  of  materialism,  our  old 
friends,  the  immortal  Soldiers  Three,  give  place 
to  one  Pyecroft,  a  naval  machinist,  who  weighs 
and  measures  life  in  the  language  of  the  engine 
room. 

Many  of  these  stories  are  curiosities  of  the  pass- 
ing hour.  But  there  are  others,  in  which  mechan- 
ics play  little  or  no  part,  that  have  a  far  better 
right,  and  better  chance  to  live.  There  is,  for  in- 
stance, a  unique  little  bit  of  dialogue,  Below  the 
Milldam,  written  somewhat  in  the  mood  of  the 
Jungle  Books.  Surely  there  is  no  other  living 
writer  to  whom  it  would  have  occurred  to  write  a 
pungent  satire  upon  English  conservatism  and  the 
encroachment  of  modern  thought,  in  the  form  of  a 
discussion  between  a  Gray  Cat,  a  Black  Rat  and 
an  ancient  Mill  Wheel,  that  creakingly  drones  out 
whole  pages  of  the  Doomsday  Book  as  it  monot- 
onously grinds  forth  its  daily  task.  Then  there 
is  An  Habitation  Enforced,  written  in  a  manner 
reminiscent  of  Henry  James,  telling  how  a  young 
American  couple  who  have  gone  abroad,  seeking 
for  a  quiet  spot  where  the  husband  may  heal  his 
shattered  nerves  and  escape  for  the  time  from  the 
killing   drive   of  American   business,   temporarily 


144  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

rent  a  beautiful  old  English  estate,  and  little  by 
little  find  themselves  taken  possession  of  by  the 
place,  by  its  traditions,  by  its  delicious  yet  in- 
tangible charm.  It  is  a  story  which  shows  more 
plainly  than  any  other  the  distance  that  Mr.  Kip- 
ling has  traveled  since  he  wrote  The  Story  of  the 
Gadsbys — it  is  the  difference  between  youth's 
scorn  of  marriage  and  of  the  safe  prosperity  of 
country  life,  and  the  wisdom  of  middle  age,  that 
sees  the  tranquil  beauty  of  domesticity,  the  mellow 
charm  of  an  English  landscape. 

There  is  just  one  more  story  that  refuses  to  be 
passed  over,  for  it  has  the  double  appeal  of  fault- 
less technique  and  a  haunting  personality — Mrs. 
Bathurst.  A  great  deal  has  been  said  about  the 
incomprehensibility  of  this  story,  its  downright 
opacity.  There  are  people  of  average  intelligence 
who  will  assure  you  that  after  reading  it  twice  and 
even  three  times,  they  can  make  nothing  at  all  out 
of  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  nothing  ob- 
scure about  what  Mr.  Kipling  has  seen  fit  to  tell  us 
— only,  as  often  happens  in  real  life,  we  are  not 
privileged  to  hear  more  than  a  few  disjointed,  ran- 
dom facts — "  the  rest  is  silence."  What  we  do 
hear  is  that  Vickerey,  a  warrant  officer,  with  a 
wife  living  in  England,  met  a  certain  Mrs.  Bath- 
urst, attractive  and  popular  keeper  of  a  public 
bar  in  Auckland,  much  frequented  by  naval  men. 
What  there  was  between  Vickerey  and  Mrs.  Bath- 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  145 

urst,  we  are  not  told,  but  it  is  implied  that "  there 
must  have  been  a  good  deal."  At  all  events,  Vick- 
erey leaves  her,  not  knowing,  we  infer,  the  real 
extent  of  her  interest  in  him — perhaps,  also,  dog- 
gedly determined  to  do  his  duty  by  the  wife  in 
England.  Then  later,  when  his  duties  have  taken 
him  to  South  Africa,  he  idly  drifts,  one  day  when 
he  has  shore  leave,  into  a  cinematograph  show; 
and  among  the  pictures  is  one  showing  a  London 
railway  station,  a  train  pulling  in,  coming  to  a 
stop,  the  doors  of  the  compartments  opening,  and 
then  suddenly,  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  merciful 
doubt,  Mrs.  Bathurst  stepping  out,  and  coming 
down  the  platform,  looking  straight  ahead  of  her, 
with  the  unforgotten  "  blindish  look  in  her  eyes." 
What  Vickerey  feels  is  not  recorded ;  but  just  at 
this  time  he  has  news  that  his  wife  is  dead,  and  we 
conclude  that,  whether  right  or  wrong  in  his  be- 
lief, Vickerey  believes  that  Mrs.  Bathurst  has  fol- 
lowed him  to  London,  is  perhaps  even  now  on  her 
way  to  the  Cape.  Day  after  day,  so  long  as  it 
remains  in  town,  Vickerey  haunts  the  cinemato- 
graph, waiting  dumbly,  blindly,  for  the  few  brief 
seconds  when  he  may  once  more  see  Mrs.  Bathurst 
come  down  the  platform,  with  the  "  blindish  look 
in  her  eyes."  In  the  belief  of  his  friends  he  is  tem- 
porarily out  of  his  mind,  and  his  Captain  appar- 
ently concurs  in  this  verdict ;  for  after  an  official 
interview,  which  is  one  of  the  things  we  are  not 


146  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

permitted  to  overhear,  he  sends  Vickerey  up 
country,  to  recuperate;  then  comes  the  news 
that  Vickerey  has  deserted,  and  mystery  for 
the  time  being  swallows  him  up.  Then,  at  the 
end,  another  broken  fragment  of  grisly  import ; 
far  up  the  line  of  rails  running  northward 
through  newly  opened  country,  a  lightning-seared 
tree,  and  beneath  it  two  charred  forms,  literally 
human  charcoal,  the  one  still  upright,  looking 
down  on  "  his  mate."  And  some  false  teeth,  and 
a  few  tattooed  letters,  standing  out  whitish 
against  the  black,  complete  the  identification. 
Now,  the  whole  strength  of  this  story  lies  in  the 
method  of  its  telling.  You  hear  it  from  the 
lips  of  stolid,  callous  naval  men,  rude  of  speech, 
coarse  in  their  views  of  life  in  general  and  of 
women  in  particular.  And  through  the  medium  of 
their  very  coarseness,  their  picturesque  vulgarity, 
their  lack  of  finer  perceptions,  you  get  an  impres- 
sion of  a  tragic  drama  which  no  amount  of  finer 
methods  could  have  given.  In  its  suggestion  of 
vague,  unspeakable  things,  lying  behind  the  writ- 
ten words,  lengthening  vistas  where  the  imagina- 
tion may  stray  and  lose  itself,  it  stands  as  an  ex- 
ceptional tour  de  force,  one  of  those  few  stories 
that  you  cannot  forget,  even  if  you  would. 

It  is  because  he  can  thus  work  magic  with  words, 
because  he  has  an  unmatched  genius  for  taking  life 
as  a  whole,  with  all  its  crudeness,  its  sordidness,  its 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  147 

materialism,  and  weaving  it  into  pictures  of  haunt- 
ing mystery  and  romance,  that  Mr.  Kipling  holds 
among  story  tellers  of  to-day  a  prestige  which 
shall  not  soon  be  taken  from  him.  But  behind  the 
craft  of  the  story  teller,  beyond  the  lure  of  the 
unfolded  tale,  lies  the  potency  of  a  personality, 
the  dynamic  force  of  a  mind  that,  right  or  wrong, 
has  an  unshaken  confidence  in  its  own  philosophy 
of  life. 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

On  the  question  of  popular  judgment  in  art  and 
letters,  Mr.  Ruskin  uttered  very  nearly  the  ulti- 
mate word  when  he  pointed  out  the  illogic  of  ex- 
pecting the  opinions  of  a  crowd  to  be  correct,  when 
the  opinions  of  any  individual  in  that  crowd  were 
more  than  likely  to  be  wrong.  Black  is  not  made 
white  by  calling  it  so,  and  the  mere  fact  that  a 
mob  of  a  thousand  are  simultaneously  shouting 
their  mistake  does  not  make  it  one  shade  the  whiter 
than  a  single  voice  would  do.  It  follows  that, 
when  an  author  of  real  artistic  worth  and  delicacy 
of  style,  after  being  consistently  neglected  by  the 
general  public,  suddenly  receives  the  popular  vote, 
it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  scrutinize  his  later  work 
with  more  than  usual  care  and  question  seriously 
whether  he  has  not  sacrificed  some  of  his  ideals. 
A  case  in  point  is  afforded  by  Mr.  William  J. 
Locke,  author  of  The  Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne 
and  The  Beloved  Vagabond,  also — and  there  is  a 
sense  of  anti-climax  in  naming  them — of  Septimus 
and  Simon  the  Jester. 

Let  us  ask  briefly  just  what  Mr.  Locke  stands 
for  in  contemporary  fiction,  and  what  his  own  at- 

148 


WILLIAM  JOHN   LOCKE 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  149 

titude  is  toward  the  craft  of  story-telling.  To  any 
one  asking  these  questions  a  few  years  ago,  the 
answer  would  have  been  that  Mr.  Locke  did  not 
consider  himself  primarily  a  man  of  letters ;  that 
he  was,  on  the  contrary,  known  to  the  world 
chiefly  through  his  chosen  profession  of  architec- 
ture, and  more  especially  through  his  post  of 
honor  as  Secretary  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  Brit- 
ish Architects ;  and  that  his  novel-writing  was 
mainly  a  relaxation,  an  avenue  of  escape  from  the 
daily  routine,  a  method  of  enjoying  indirectly  a 
certain  blithe  and  irresponsible  Bohemianism.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  great  number  of  people 
were  asking  these  questions  a  few  years  ago ;  there 
was  no  urgency  on  the  part  of  the  general  public 
to  acquire  information  concerning  Mr.  Locke's 
personality  or  literary  methods ;  one  could  search 
the  index  of  periodical  literature  in  vain  for  any 
special  articles  devoted  to  him.  In  England  he 
had  a  small  but  slowly  augmenting  circle  of 
readers.     In  America  he  had  practically  no  fol- 

jwing  at  all,  and  the  reviews  which  greeted  each 
su<"  essive  book,  while  often  cordially  recognizing 
t)  dir  peculiar  quality,  were  apt  to  refer  to  him 

aguely  as  "  a  certain  W.  J.  Locke,"  as  though 
his  name  awakened  no  chord  of  memory  in  the 
reviewer's  mind.  But  presently  a  number  of  little 
things  happened,  the  cumulative  force  of  which 
must  have  caused  considerable  surprise  to  a  per- 


150  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

son  of  so  retiring  a  disposition  as  Mr.  Locke.  In 
the  first  place,  the  experiment  of  building  a  play 
from  the  Morals  of  Marcus  resulted  in  a  very  big 
London  success,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  at  the  time 
there  was  a  feud  between  the  actor-manager,  Mr. 
Arthur  Bourchier,  and  the  dramatic  critics,  in 
consequence  of  which  the  play  was  practically  ig- 
nored by  the  daily  press.  Then  came  the  Ameri- 
can production  of  Marcus,  followed  by  the  dram- 
atization of  what  is  easily  Mr.  Locke's  best 
work,  The  Beloved  Vagabond;  then  the  sudden 
awakening  of  the  general  public  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  an  author  about  whom  they  ought  to 
know  something;  and  finally  the  serialization  of 
Mr.  Locke's  next  novel,  Septimus,  in  a  popular 
magazine  of  big  circulation.  That  was,  of  course, 
an  immense  difference  between  the  modest  succes 
d'estime  of  former  years  and  the  new  flamboyant 
heralding  with  its  award  of  crowded  houses  and 
a  place  among  the  Six  Best  Selling  Books.  And 
because  all  this  is  calculated  to  confuse  one's 
sense  of  relative  values,  it  seems  worth  while  to 
try  to  forget,  for  the  moment,  these  misleading 
factors  of  popular  success  and  to  ask  calmly  and 
judicially  what  Septimus  really  stands  for  in  the 
literary  development  of  Mr.  Locke  and  how  the 
workmanship  of  his  later  volumes  compares  with 
that  of  his  earlier. 

There  is,  on  the  surface  of  it,  something  para- 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  151 

doxical  in  the  contrast  between  the  quiet  correct- 
ness of  the  author's  personality  and  the  riotous 
unconventionally  of  his  themes.  Among  the  many 
utterances  of  Sir  Marcus  which  one  suspects  to! 
be  the  embodiment  of  Mr.  Locke's  own  views,  his 
private  philosophy  of  life,  is  the  following  sug- 
gestive passage,  which  offers  a  key  to  the  puzzle: 

Hasn't  a  phase  of  the  duality  of  our  nature  ever 
struck  you?  We  have  a  primary  or  everyday  nature 
— a  thing  of  habit,  tradition,  circumstance;  and  we 
also  have  a  secondary  nature  which  clamors  for  vari- 
ous sensations  and  is  quite  contented  with  vicarious 
gratification.  There  are  delicately  fibered  novelists 
who  satisfy  a  sort  of  secondary  Berserkism  by  writ- 
ing books  whose  pages  reek  with  bloodshed.  The  most 
placid,  benevolent,  gold-spectacled  paterfamilias  I 
I  know,  a  man  who  thinks  it  cruel  to  eat  live  oysters, 
has  a  curious  passion  for  crime  and  gratifies  it  by 
turning  his  study  into  a  musee  macabre  of  murderers' 
relics.  In  the  same  way  predestined  spinsters  obtain 
vicarious  enjoyment  of  the  tender  passion  by  reading 
highly  colored  love-stories. 

There  in  a  nutshell  we  have  the  secret  source  of 
the  delightful  unconventionally  of  Mr.  Locke's 
stories,  the  charm  of  irresponsible  Bohemianism 
with  which  they  were  permeated.  This  quiet,  cor- 
rect gentleman  of  forty-nine  years — he  was  born 
in  the  Barbados,  March  20,  1863 — this  graduate 


152  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  with  special 
honors  in  mathematics ;  this  dignified  Secretary  of 
the  Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects,  has  a 
secondary  nature  which  craves  the  varied  sensa- 
tion of  the  Vie  de  Boheme,  and  gratifies  it  vicar- 
iously in  his  leisure  hours  by  writing  the  annals  of 
more  than  one  lovable  and  philosophic  vagabond. 
As  has  already  been  intimated,  there  are  no  Eng- 
lish writers  with  whom  Mr.  Locke  is  closely  re- 
lated, in  style,  mood  or  subject-matter.  He  is 
quite  sui  generis,  an  unimitative  as  he  is  inimitable. 
A  rebellious  vein  of  romanticism,  a  love  of  the 
quixotic,  a  tender  chivalry,  an  indulgent  irony: 
these  are  some  of  the  qualities  possessed  by  his 
most  characteristic  volumes.  His  deliciously  irre- 
sponsible vagaries,  his  whimsical  tenderness,  his 
audacious  disregard  of  the  conventions  of  story- 
writing,  and  not  less  than  these  his  undeniable 
quality  of  style  entitle  him  to  be  recognized  as  one 
of  that  small  group  who  have  a  chance  to  outlive 
that  great  host  of  ephemeral  novelists  who  write 
for  the  day  and  hour.  He  is  not  a  master  of  fiction 
in  the  sense  in  which  we  think  of  Maupassant  and 
Meredith  and  Henry  James — masters  equally  of 
technique  and  of  the  truth  of  life.  Mr.  Locke's 
mastery  is  of  an  entirely  different  sort.  His 
power  lies  almost  wholly  in  the  personal  equation, 
the  whimsical,  extravagant,  ironical  conceptions 
that  he  flings  before  us  often  in  defiance  of  com- 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  153 

mon  sense  and  the  laws  of  probability — now  and 
then  almost  crossing  the  border-line  of  caricature, 
and  yet  kept  curiously  real  by  the  very  genuine 
and  whole-hearted  understanding  of  human  na- 
ture that  lies  behind  them.  In  the  feeblest  passages 
of  his  earlier  works,  his  romanticism  sometimes  be- 
trayed him  into  lapses  to  which  an  unkind  critic 
might  suggest  a  parallel  from  Ouida.  In  the  best 
pages  of  Marcus  Ordeyne  and  The  Beloved  Vaga- 
bond there  is  an  intangible  charm  which  finds  its 
kinship  in  French  literature,  rather  than  in  Eng- 
lish— that  typically  Gallic  vein  of  satire  and 
humor  which  in  one  epoch  and  enviroment  pro- 
duced a  Henry  Murger,  and  in  another  an  Ana- 
tole  France.  Mr.  Locke  could  never  have  created 
a  Sylvestre  Bonnard  or  a  M.  Bergerat,  but  he 
might  have  embodied  their  philosophy,  their  erudi- 
tion, their  love  of  letters  in  some  one  of  the 
patient  and  courageous  denizens  of  that  bohemia 
which  he  haunts  by  proxy  and  which  Murger  him- 
self once  defined  as  "  the  antechamber  to  the 
Academy,  the  hospital  or  the  morgue." 

With  the  appearance  of  The  Beloved  Vagabond, 
Mr.  Locke  rounded  out  his  first  ten  volumes ;  and, 
while  these  show  a  fairly  steady  advance  in  con- 
structive ability,  it  may  be  said  without  fear  of 
contradiction,  that  if  measured  by  his  plots  alone, 
Mr.  Locke  would  always  be  rated  very  much 
below  his  real  worth.     It  is  curious  to  see,  in  his 


154  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

earlier  volumes,  what  a  mistaken  importance  he  at- 
tached to  plot,  how  he  tortured  the  law  of  prob- 
abilities and  racked  his  imagination  for  startling 
and  unheard-of  situations.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  plot  is  the  part  for  which  the  sympathetic 
reader  cares  least  in  Mr.  Locke's  books.  What 
ultimately  happens  to  his  characters  is  a  minor 
consideration ;  what  they  think  and  say  and  do 
from  day  to  day  makes  up  the  vital  interest.  And 
one  suspects  that  it  is  the  same  with  Mr.  Locke 
himself  as  with  his  readers  ;  he  loves  his  characters 
less  for  what  they  achieve  than  for  what  they  are. 
He  no  longer  troubles  himself  to  seek  for  great 
variety  in  plot.  Like  Marcel's  famous  painting 
of  "  The  Passage  of  the  Red  Sea,"  in  La  Vie  de 
Boheme,  which  underwent  an  annual  metamor- 
phosis into  "  The  Passage  of  the  Rubicon,"  "  The 
Passage  of  the  Bersina,"  and  finally  "  The  Port  of 
Marseilles,"  the  ground  plans  of  several  of  Mr. 
Locke's  books  prove  to  be  clever  variations  on 
one  and  the  same  air.  You  know  the  typical 
Ouida  plot,  the  mistaken  generosity  that  makes  a 
man  give  up  a  title,  a  fortune  and  the  woman  he 
loves,  take  upon  himself  the  crime  of  another,  and 
disappear  from  the  world  that  knew  him  into  a 
life  of  vagabondage  and  obscurity.  Worked  out 
with  Ouida's  riotous  melodrama,  her  ignorance  of 
life,  her  false  ideals,  we  have  Pascarel  and  Under 
Two  Flags.     Substitute  for  her  deficiencies  a  rare 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  155 

sense  of  humor,  a  delicious  philosophy  of  life,  a 
command  of  irony  as  dexterous  as  the  rapier  play 
of  a  practised  swordsman,  and  you  get  the  meas- 
ure that  separates  William  John  Locke  from 
Ouida.  His  heroes  are  often  purposely,  extrava- 
gantly, incredibly  quixotic.  They  go  into  exile 
to  shield  a  rival,  as  in  Where  Love  Is,  or  to  save 
the  heroine's  father  from  bankruptcy,  as  in  The 
Beloved  Vagabond.  And  the  fact  that  the  reader 
accepts  their  most  preposterous  actions  with 
equanimity,  and  even  with  approval,  is  Mr.  Locke's 
sufficient  justification. 

The  truth  is  that  the  plot  is  the  thing  about 
which  Mr.  Locke,  in  his  secret  heart,  has  come  to 
care  very  little;  it  is  a  mere  scaffolding  on  which 
to  erect  a  new  structure  of  flashing  epigrams,  di- 
verting paradoxes,  absurdities  veiling  a  wise 
philosophy  of  life.  But  a  thoughtful  survey  of  his 
books  in  the  order  of  production  shows  at  least 
this :  that  he  has  steadily  weaned  himself  away 
from  his  first  tendencies  toward  melodrama ;  that 
while  one  and  all  of  his  books  are  impossible  when 
measured  by  life's  actualities,  the  later  ones  have 
grown  steadily  more  deliciously,  refreshingly  im- 
possible with  less  and  less  of  the  ranting,  bom- 
bastic, Ouidaesque  tone  of  his  first  efforts.  Un- 
doubtedly, the  process  of  development  culminated 
in  The  Beloved  Vagabond.  If  Mr.  Locke  is  ever 
to  give  us  a  better  book,  or  even  as  good  a  book, 


156  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

he  must  do  so  by  giving  us  something  radically 
different,  and  not  a  compound  of  the  same  ingre- 
dients mixed  according  to  the  same  receipt.  And 
a  mixing  of  the  same  old  ingredients,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  is  unfortunately  a  fair  description 
of  the  way  in  which  he  has  compounded  more  than 
one  of  his  later  volumes. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  survey  in  sequence 
all  of  Mr.  Locke's  earlier  volumes  in  order  to  see 
the  essential  sameness  of  their  structure ;  it  will  be 
sufficient  to  single  out  just  two  or  three  typical 
samples  such  as  Derelicts,  Where  Love  Is  and 
Idols.  Derelicts  has  one  peculiarity:  the  hero, 
Stephen  Chiseley,  actually  committed  the  fraud — 
or  was  it  embezzlement? — for  which  he  suffered  a 
term  of  years  in  prison.  Upon  his  release,  he  finds 
only  one  old  friend  who  stands  by  him,  a  charm- 
ing little  lady,  Yvonne  Latour,  a  public  singer  of 
some  note,  whose  experiment  in  matrimony  has 
been  so  unfortunate  that  she  cannot  even  feign 
sorrow  when  the  news  comes  from  Paris  that  the 
dissipated,  absinthe-drinking  French  tenor  who 
was  her  husband  is  dead.  Now,  Chiseley  has  a 
cousin,  Everard,  who  is  a  dignitary  of  much  im- 
portance in  the  Church  of  England,  a  man  whose 
religion  is  of  the  pharisaic  kind  that  teaches  him 
it  is  his  duty  to  disown  and  have  no  dealings  with 
his  erring  relative.  It  happens,  further,  that  this 
austere  canon  falls  captive  to  the  charms  of  "  little 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  157 

brown  Yvonne  "  and  marries  her ;  and  when  sub- 
sequently the  disreputable  French  husband  turns 
out  to  be  still  living,  the  canon,  with  much  heart- 
felt reluctance,  discards  Yvonne  and  has  himself 
transferred  to  a  charge  in  Australia  or  New  Zea- 
land, without  making  any  provision  for  the  woman 
he  had  believed  to  be  his  wife.  Luckily  for  her,  at 
the  moment  of  her  darkest  trial,  when  a  serious  ill- 
ness has  robbed  her  of  a  livelihood  by  ruining  her 
voice  permanently,  Stephen  drifts  once  more  across 
her  path  and  these  two  human  derelicts  find  mutual 
comfort  and  support  in  a  purely  platonic  fellow- 
ship. And  they  never  suspect  it  to  be  a  basis  for 
deeper  feeling  until  the  day  comes  when  the  canon 
returns  to  England  to  announce  that  the  French- 
man is  at  last  really  dead  and  that  he  is  eager  to 
take  Yvonne  back  and  remarry  her.  And,  of 
course,  this  is  precisely  the  one  thing  that  he  will 
be  unable  to  do,  for  she  has  outgrown  him.  Theft, 
drunkenness,  bigamy,  woven  into  a  tissue  of  gross 
improbabilities — such  is  a  fair  summing  up  of  a 
representative  volume  of  Mr.  Locke's  very  early 
work. 

In  Where  Love  Is  we  have  one  of  the  first  of  the 
long  series  of  delightful  and  eccentric  Bohemians 
that  are  Mr.  Locke's  special  and  inevitable  crea- 
tions. Jimmie  Padgate,  careless  of  dress  and 
speech,  superbly  indifferent  to  conventions,  has  the 
misfortune  to  fall  in  love  with  Norma  Hardacre, 


158  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

beautiful  daughter  of  a  worldly-minded  mamma, 
and  duly  drilled  in  her  duty  to  marry  advanta- 
geously. So,  when  she  crowns  her  mother's  hopes 
by  accepting  the  financially  eligible,  but  morally 
unspeakable,  Morland  King,  and  certain  disrepu- 
table episodes  in  King's  past  life  insist  on  coming 
to  light,  Jimmie  Padgate  saves  the  situation  by 
assuming  the  responsibility  of  King's  wild  oats — 
and  incidentally  receives  a  bullet  from  an  angry 
fanatic  bent  on  avenging  the  honor  of  King's 
victim,  who  had  added  self-murder  to  infanti- 
cide. Such  is  the  choice  assortment  of  crimes 
by  the  help  of  which  Mr.  Locke  drives  Jimmie  Pad- 
gate  into  exile,  estranges  all  his  friends,  ruins  his 
chances  of  winning  fame  and  fortune  as  an  artist, 
and  reduces  him  to  a  garret  and  a  crust — and, 
what  is  more,  a  rather  shabby  garret  and  a  pretty 
dry  crust.  The  novel  really  does  not  get  any- 
where ;  but  it  does  give  Mr.  Locke  an  opportunity 
to  indulge  in  some  rather  caustic  irony  regarding 
the  mutability  of  women ;  because,  after  all,  Norma 
Hardacre  finds  herself  unable  to  put  Jimmie  out 
of  her  mind,  and,  much  to  the  dismay  of  her  fam- 
ily, consents  to  share  his  garret  and  his  crust,  and 
for  a  few  brief  hours  raises  Jimmie  to  the  pinnacle 
of  bliss.  But  it  happens  that  when,  by  appoint- 
ment, she  goes  to  join  him  in  his  much  too  aerial 
studio,  and  enters,  out  of  breath,  to  find  it  empty, 
she  is  struck  with  the  sordidness  of  it,  the  soiled 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  159 

tablecloth,  the  fly-specked  walls,  the  cracked  and 
grimy  ceilings ;  she  realizes  that  she  cannot  face  a 
succession  of  days  and  weeks  and  months  in  such 
surroundings.  So  she  pens  a  hasty,  conscience- 
stricken  note  and  flees  incontinently. 

Idols  is  easily  the  best  example  of  Mr.  Locke's 
earlier  period.  It  is  first  of  all  a  study  of  a  woman 
who,  having  the  opportunity  to  choose  between  two 
men,  the  one  sterling  and  the  other  dross,  takes 
the  dross  and  spends  bitter  years  in  slowly  learn- 
ing her  mistake.  Yet,  although  Hugh  Colman  is 
the  man  of  sterling  metal,  he  is  human  and  he  errs. 
He  foolishly  contracts  a  secret  marriage  with  the 
daughter  of  a  wealthy  and  influential  Jew;  and 
when,  too  late,  he  goes  to  the  father  to  make  a 
formal  offer  for  her  hand,  he  learns  that  the  Jew's 
opposition  is  immovable  and  that  he  has  guarded 
against  such  a  marriage  by  disinheriting  his 
daughter  in  case  of  it.  The  two  have  a  violent  al- 
tercation which  is  overheard  by  servants.  Later 
in  the  night  Colman  joins  his  wife  surreptitiously 
by  means  of  a  side  window;  and  he  is  actually  in 
the  house  of  his  father-in-law  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  old  man  is  being  murdered  by  another  in- 
truder. It  is  inevitable  that  suspicion  should  fall 
upon  Colman,  and  his  arrest  follows  as  a  matter  of 
course.  His  urgent  request  to  Minna,  his  Jewish 
wife,  to  tell  the  truth  and  establish  his  alibi,  is  met 
by  her  frantic  refusal,  her  tearful  insistence  that 


160  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

he  shall  keep  his  promise  of  secrecy,  because  to 
tell  means  to  forfeit  her  inheritance.  The  court 
scene  is  the  big  moment  in  the  book.  Irene  Mer- 
rian,  the  woman  who  has  married  the  wrong  man, 
the  woman  who  has  worshiped  idols,  mistaking 
them  for  gods,  knows  by  intuition  that  Hugh  Col- 
man,  her  husband's  best  friend  and  her  own,  is  in- 
nocent ;  she  knows  that  her  husband  shares  her  be- 
lief;  she  sees,  day  by  day,  as  she  attends  the  trial, 
how  inexorable  a  network  of  condemnatory  evi- 
dence is  gathering  around  him.  So,  when  she  her- 
self is  called  to  testify,  she  deliberately  commits 
perjury,  publicly  swearing  away  her  own  honor 
and  convincing  the  jury  beyond  a  doubt  that  the 
prisoner  was  not  in  the  vicinity  of  the  murdered 
man.  And  when,  crushed  with  the  strain  of  the 
ordeal,  she  leaves  the  court,  sustained,  neverthe- 
less, by  the  sense  of  a  duty  performed  and  a  friend 
saved,  she  discovers  that  she  has  convinced  one 
more  than  she  had  intended.  With  the  announce- 
ment that  her  husband  will  at  once  bring  suit  for 
divorce,  the  last  of  her  idols  crumbles  into  dust. 

Whether  you  approve  of  Idols  or  not,  the  fact 
remains  that,  up  to  the  publication  of  The  Morals 
of  Marcus  Ordeyne,  it  remained  Mr.  Locke's  high- 
water  mark  in  fiction.  With  this  last-named  book 
we  come  quite  suddenly  to  the  period  of  Mr. 
Locke's  mature  development.  The  Morals  of  Mar- 
cus  Ordeyne  is  the  first  of  his  books  that  fully  de- 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  161 

serves  to  be  indorsed  as  refreshingly  whimsical, 
the  sort  of  book  that  might  have  been  written  by 
an  Anglo-Saxon  Anatole  France  in  holiday  mood. 
Yet  told  in  epitome,  it  sounds  like  a  tissue  of  ab- 
surdities. Marcus  Ordeyne — Sir  Marcus,  to  give 
him  his  due — is  a  bookworm  and  a  confirmed 
bachelor,  the  hopeless  sort  of  bachelor  who  oc- 
casionally enjoys  a  couple  of  hours  with  some 
child,  because  "  the  enjoyment  is  enhanced  by  the 
feeling  of  utter  thankfulness  that  he  is  not  my 
child,  but  somebody  else's."  The  opening  pages 
are  a  deliciously  frank  portrayal  of  egotistical 
content  between  his  stolid  English  valet,  Stenson, 
his  fat  French  cook,  Antoinette,  his  one-eyed  cat, 
Polyphemus,  his  treasured  cinquecento  volumes 
and  his  long-standing  and  vaguely  defined  rela- 
tions with  Judith,  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic 
little  lady  living  in  "  the  purlieus  of  Tottenham 
Court  Road."  And  all  of  a  sudden  Sir  Marcus's 
carefully  planned  scheme  of  existence,  even  his 
code  of  morals,  is  rudely  shaken  to  its  foundations 
by  a  most  unprecendented  occurrence.  Fate  leads 
him  one  day  to  the  Thames  Embankment,  where 
by  rights  nothing  extraordinary  should  have  hap- 
pened to  him,  but  where,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
encounters  a  strange  young  woman,  a  poor  little 
waif  whose  only  knowledge  of  life  has  been  gleaned 
within  the  walls  of  an  Eastern  harem,  and  who  is 
now  utterly  dazed  and  terrified  by  the  rush  and 


162  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

whirl  of  the  metropolis.  When  this  strange  ap- 
parition in  bizarre  apparel  appeals  to  him  for 
help,  and  tells  an  extraordinary  tale  to  account 
for  her  presence  in  London,  it  is  the  turn  of  Sir 
Marcus  to  feel  dazed.  It  is  not  a  tale  which  in- 
vites confidence,  and  Sir  Marcus  frankly  disbe- 
lieves it  until  he  looks  into  her  big,  innocent  eyes. 
Then  he  capitulates. 

I  told  her  to  give  me  time.  One  is  not  in  the 
habit  of  meeting  abducted  Lights  of  the  Harem  in 
the  Embankment  Gardens,  beneath  the  National  Lib- 
erty Club.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  bewildering  occurrence. 
I  looked  around  me.  Nothing  seemed  to  have  hap- 
pened during  the  last  ten  minutes.  A  pale  young 
man  on  the  next  bench,  whom  I  had  noticed  when 
I  entered,  was  reading  a  dirty  pink  newspaper. 
Pigeons  and  sparrows  hopped  about  unconcernedly. 
On  the  file  of  cabs,  just  perceptible  through  the  foli- 
age, the  cabmen  lolled  in  listless  attitudes. 

And  so  on  through  a  lengthy  series  of  vivid 
trivialities  the  author  makes  his  stage  setting  so 
real  and  his  Sir  Marcus  so  thoroughly  human  that 
by  sheer  force  of  contrast  he  wins  credence  for 
the  young  woman  from  the  harem — and  very 
largely  because,  however  extraordinary  we  find 
her,  we  can  never  be  any  more  astonished  and  be- 
wildered by  her  peculiarities  than  is  Sir  Marcus 
himself.  The  subsequent  story,  which  is  of  the 
kind  that  might  easily  be  ruined  by  a  clumsy  touch, 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  163 

and  which  in  point  of  fact  is  delicately  handled 
almost  to  the  last,  pictures  the  serious  havoc 
wrought  upon  Sir  Marcus  after  he  has,  out  of 
pure  benevolence,  installed  this  unsophisticated 
and  embarrassing  young  person  in  his  bachelor 
apartments.  It  seems  a  pity  that  a  volume  which 
for  the  most  part  is  written  in  a  vein  of  indulgent 
satire  and  tender  humor  should  be  marred  by  the 
false  touch  of  the  harem  girl's  elopement  with 
another  man. 

With  The  Beloved  Vagabond  we  come  at  last 
into  full  sympathy  with  Mr.  Locke's  methods  and 
attitude  toward  life.  In  regard  to  his  earlier 
books  the  reader  was  apt  to  waste  his  energy  in 
trying  to  be  sympathetic  where  Mr.  Locke  was  se- 
cretly derisive.  But  in  this  volume,  which,  quite 
regardless  of  its  ultimate  worth,  is  without  ques- 
tion the  biggest  achievement  of  Mr.  Locke's  career, 
reader  and  author  are  for  the  first  time  wholly  in 
accord.  The  truth  is  that  no  one  really  cares  why 
the  Beloved  Vagabond  went  into  exile,  why  he  be- 
came a  stranger  to  the  life  to  which  he  was  born 
and  dropped  down  to  a  shiftless,  irresponsible 
vagabondage.  One  is  satisfied  to  know  that  the 
metamorphosis  was  accomplished,  for  without  it 
we  never  should  have  had  Berzelius  Nibbidard 
Paragot,  slovenly  and  erudite,  impecunious  and 
arrogant,  disreputable  and  chivalrous,  inherently 
irresponsible  and  lovable  always. 


164  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

But  how  is  it  possible,  at  second  hand,  to  con- 
vey  an  idea  of  the  pervading  charm  of  a  book 
whose  very  essence,  like  its  title,  involves  a  para- 
dox— a  book  which  forces  us  to  find  delight  in  the 
very  things  which  on  all  logical  grounds  of  tradi- 
tion and  education  and  habit  of  thought  should  be 
expected  to  disappoint  and  repel  us?     Paragot  is 
not  merely  a  penniless  wanderer,  he  is  not  merely 
out-at-elbow,  but  he  has  lost  much  of  the  rudimen- 
tary sense  of  decency.  His  hair  is  a  stranger  to  the 
barber,  his  hands  are  often  in  need  not  only  of 
manicuring,  but  of  the  more  elementary  attention 
of  soap  and  water;  his  predilection  for  absinthe 
makes  it  a  nightly  problem  whether  he  can  find  his 
way  unaided  to  bed.     Nothing  less  than  a  tour  de 
force  could  make  us  not  only  overlook  the  short- 
comings of  such  a  hero,  but  love  him  in  spite  of 
them — one  might  almost  say  love  him  the  more  on 
account  of  them.     If  he  were  different  from  what 
he  is,  he  would  cease  to  be  the  delightful,  inim- 
itable, big-hearted  Paragot,  sharing  his  poverty 
with  various  stray  waifs,  male  and  female,  that 
come  his  way;  accepting  contentedly  the  chance 
means  of  earning  a  meal  that  are  offered  from  day 
to  day,  whether  it  be  fiddling  at  a  village  wedding 
or  weeding  a  market  garden  or  aiding  in  the  exca- 
vations of  the  Roman  Forum.    And  while  we  follow 
him  on  his  wanderings  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Europe,   with  his   two   companions — 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  165 

Asticot,  the  lad  whom  he  adopts  and  who  chronicles 
his  life  for  us,  and  Blanquette  de  Veau,  the  phe- 
nomenally stupid  and  unattractive  peasant  girl, 
who  gives  him  the  dumb  devotion  of  an  animal — 
we  lose  sight  of  his  failings  and  see  him  surrounded 
by  a  halo  of  kindliness  and  chivalry ;  in  the  midst 
of  his  present  sordidness  we  think  of  him  in  his 
youth,  the  eager,  handsome  lover  of  the  woman  he 
has  lost,  the  woman  with  the  petits  pieds  si  adores. 
At  first  we  hope  vaguely  that  the  shadow  will  lift, 
the  mystery  be  cleared  away,  and  Paragot  be  re- 
stored to  his  rights,  his  fortune,  the  woman  he 
loves.  But  little  by  little,  in  proportion  as  it  be- 
comes clearer  that  this  transformation  sooner  or 
later  is  bound  to  take  place,  we  grow  apprehensive 
for  his  sake,  because  the  truth  is  borne  in  upon  us 
that  the  change  will  come  too  late — that  he  has 
grown  too  accustomed  to  his  vagabondage,  too  out 
of  touch  with  the  conventions  of  life  ever  to  find 
happiness  apart  from  Bohemia,  even  with  the  one 
woman  in  the  world.  But  our  apprehension  is  mis- 
placed; for  when  the  crisis  arises  there  is  just  one 
course  for  a  Berzelius  Nibbidard  Paragot  to  pur- 
sue, and  Mr.  Locke  with  unerring  instinct  has 
divined  what  that  one  thing  would  be.  Nothing  is 
better  in  the  whole  extent  of  this  rare  and  delight- 
ful book  than  the  unexpected  and  appropriate 
whimsicality  of  its  climax. 

This  brings  us  to  Mr.  Locke  at  the  crossroads, 


166  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

with  the  alternative  offered  him  of  the  commenda- 
tion of  the  few  on  the  one  hand  or  the  applause  of 
the  multitude  on  the  other.  His  first  genuine  suc- 
cess, the  sterling  success  of  approval,  by  men  of 
his  own  class,  by  the  aristocracy  of  letters,  was 
The  Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne.  He  knew  better 
than  to  try  to  duplicate  this  success  by  anything 
short  of  an  absolute  contrast.  Two  books  more 
dissimilar  than  Sir  Marcus  and  The  Beloved  Vaga- 
bond it  would  be  hard  to  imagine.  But  at  this 
point  Mr.  Locke  chose  to  change  his  policy  and  to 
try  deliberately  to  work  over  an  old  idea,  as  long 
as  it  would  give  returns.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
Berzelius  Nibbidard  Paragot  is  a  vagabond  and 
an  exile,  because  he  has  taken  upon  his  shoulders 
the  sins  of  some  one  else,  some  one  closely  related 
to  the  woman  he  thought  he  loved,  the  woman  with 
the  petits  pieds  si  adores.  And  having  assumed 
this  burden,  he  accepts  with  it  all  the  consequences 
it  entails ;  the  necessity  of  playing  the  part  con- 
sistently before  the  eyes  of  the  world,  of  cutting 
himself  off  from  all  the  old  associations  that  had 
formerly  made  up  the  joy  of  living;  and,  hardest 
of  all,  silently  accepting  the  scorn  of  the  woman 
who  does  not  understand.  And  in  the  end,  he 
awakens  to  a  knowledge  that  all  the  weary  months 
and  years  through  which  he  has  been  mourning  for 
his  lost  happiness,  a  better  and  finer  and  more  gen- 
uine joy  of  life  has  been  within  easy  arm's-length, 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  167 

waiting  for  him  to  reach  out  and  take  it.  This,  in 
brief,  is  the  skeleton  structure  of  The  Beloved 
Vagabond.  And,  like  most  skeleton  structures,  it 
is  of  small  value  except  for  the  flesh  and  blood 
that  it  serves  to  sustain.  For  what  Berzelius  Nib- 
bidard  Paragot  does  is  of  infinitely  less  importance 
than  what  Berzelius  Nibbidard  Paragot  is.  His 
destiny  is  a  diverting  story,  but  his  personality  is 
an  abiding  joy. 

Now,  with  no  intention  of  being  unfair,  the  re- 
viewer who  attempts  in  like  manner  to  epitomize 
Septimus  finds  himself  compelled  by  truth  to  do  it 
very  much  after  this  fashion ;  to  point  out  that 
Septimus  Ajax  Dix,  if  not  quite  a  vagabond  and 
exile,  has  at  least  cut  himself  off  from  his  old 
routine  of  life  because  he  has  taken  upon  his 
shoulders  the  sins  of  some  one  else,  some  one 
closely  related  to  the  woman  he  thinks  he  loves. 
And  having  assumed  this  burden,  he  accepts  with 
it  all  the  consequences  it  entails ;  the  necessity  of 
playing  his  part  consistently,  before  the  eyes  of 
the  world,  the  necessity  of  cutting  himself  off 
from  certain  old  associations  that  had  once  made 
up  the  joy  of  living;  and  hardest  of  all,  silently 
bearing  the  wondering  contempt  of  the  woman  for 
whom  he  has  sacrificed  himself,  and  who  is  in- 
capable of  understanding.  And  in  the  end,  he 
awakens  to  a  knowledge  that  the  weary  months 
through  which  he  has  bravely  played  his  part  have 


168  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

really  been  a  blessing  in  disguise  because  they  have 
gradually  been  paving  the  way  to  a  better  and 
finer  and  more  genuine  joy  of  life  that  has  all  the 
time  been  within  arm's-length,  waiting  only  for 
him  to  reach  out  and  take  it.  Somehow,  there 
is  a  familiar  ring  about  this.  It  almost  sounds 
like  a  twice-told  tale.  Of  course,  to  those  who  dis- 
sect plots  with  the  elaborate  care  that  a  geologist 
gives  to  the  bones  of  a  pterodactyl,  it  may  seem  a 
vastly  important  point  of  difference  that  the  sin- 
ful relative  of  the  lady  aux  chers  petits  pieds  was 
her  bankrupt  father,  while  in  the  case  of  the 
woman  whom  Septimus  Ajax  Dix  thought  he  loved 
it  happened  to  be  a  frail  and  erring  sister.  But 
in  either  case,  the  articulation  of  the  joints,  the 
action  of  the  story,  moves  along  in  quite  the  same 
fashion.  The  vital  difference  lies  here:  that  in 
The  Beloved  Vagabond  we  have  a  group  of  charac- 
ters that  refuse  to  be  forgotten ;  Asticot,  Blan- 
quette  de  Veau,  the  Vagabond  himself,  have  taken 
their  places  among  those  permanent  friends  in 
the  world  of  fiction  without  whom  life  would  be  just 
so  much  the  poorer.  But  in  Septimus,  however 
much  we  may  smile  at  the  time,  over  whimsicalities 
of  speech  and  action,  there  is  not  a  character  for 
whom  we  would  feel  a  greater  desire  for  another 
meeting  than  for  the  fellow-travelers  whom  we 
face  for  a  brief  ten  minutes  in  a  trolley  car.  Prob- 
ably if  we  did  meet  them,  we  should  not  be  aware  of 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  169 

it;  but  if  ever  we  should  meet  Paragot,  striding 
joyously  along  some  rural  by-way  of  France, 
even  though  he  be  no  longer  the  Vagabond  of  old, 
but  Paragot,  the  reformed  Benedict,  the  landed 
proprietor,  the  father  of  a  family,  we  should  know 
him  on  the  instant  and  joyously  hail  him  by  name. 

And  in  only  slightly  less  measure  this  is  also 
true  of  The  Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne.  Less 
human  in  its  appeal,  depending  more  upon  little 
flashes  of  irony  than  on  the  whimsical  tenderness 
that  is  Mr.  Locke's  most  characteristic  note,  it 
nevertheless  leaves  an  impression  that  abides. 
There  is  in  it,  more  strongly  than  anywhere  else, 
a  certain  flavor  that  is  more  Gallic  than  British, 
a  sparkle  that  one  must  seek  long  to  find  in  any 
other  English  novelist  of  to-day.  It  bears  well 
the  test  of  a  second  reading;  not  so  well,  to  be 
sure,  as  The  Beloved  Vagabond,  but  certainly 
much  better  than  such  volumes  as  A  White  Dove, 
Idols  and  Derelicts, — and  emphatically  better 
than  Septimus. 

And  the  reason?  Well,  no  one,  not  even  the 
author  himself,  can  explain  why  one  book  has  in 
it  the  spark  of  genius  and  another  has  not.  But 
this  at  least  can  be  said  without  fear  of  contra- 
diction :  that  Septimus  is  curiously  well  adapted 
to  the  purposes  of  a  popular  serial,  and  that 
none  of  Mr.  Locke's  earlier  volumes  would  have 
been  nearly  so  well  suited  to  this  purpose.     And 


170  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

secondly,  that  if,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  we 
should  assume  that  Mr.  Locke  had  set  himself  to 
study  over  all  of  his  other  books ;  to  select  from 
them  such  incidents  and  situations,  such  epi- 
grams and  paradoxes  as  had  apparently  caught 
the  popular  vote ;  and  then  with  deliberate  in- 
tention had  built  up  a  story  that  should  embody 
all  of  these  popular  qualities,  we  might  have  ex- 
pected the  resulting  volume  to  be  something  not 
greatly  unlike  Septimus.  Not  that  Septimus  is 
undeserving  of  its  popularity.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  exactly  the  sort  of  book  of  which  the  crowd — 
Mr.  Ruskin's  crowd — might  be  expected  to 
approve. 

For  the  reasons  above  given  there  was  good 
reason  to  fear,  on  the  evidence  offered  by  Septi- 
mus, that  the  peculiar  vein  of  Mr.  Locke's  humor 
was  in  danger  of  running  out.  Simon  the  Jester, 
although  by  no  means  a  book  of  importance,  was 
in  a  measure  reassuring.  And  after  all,  when 
one  realizes  the  nature  of  Mr.  Locke's  literary 
formula,  it  follows  naturally  that  so  long  as 
human  nature  exists  there  is  no  possibility  of  his 
particular  vein  ever  running  dry.  To  word 
it  crudely,  his  trick  seems  to  be  to  take  life  as 
it  is  and  then  wilfully  turn  it  topsy-turvy.  He 
peoples  his  mimic  world  with  bizarre  characters 
verging  on  the  grotesque,  and  then  suddenly  sur- 
prises us  by  a  sense  of  their  kinship — the  sheer 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  171 

inborn  humanity  of  them.  "  What  do  people 
usually  do,  what  do  people  usually  think  ?  "  He 
seems  all  the  time  to  be  saying :  "  Well,  my  peo- 
ple are  going  to  do  and  to  think  not  thus  but  far 
otherwise.  They  shall  do  impossible,  illogical 
things ;  they  shall  amaze  and  shock  and  irritate — 
and  nevertheless  you  shall  love  them  in  spite  of 
yourself,  because  in  them  you  shall  see  the  reflex 
of  your  own  hopes  and  fears ;  your  own  strivings 
and  failures." 

It  would  be  venturesome  to  profess  to  analyze 
the  birth  and  origin  of  Simon  the  Jester.  But 
let  us  suppose,  by  way  of  illustration,  that  Mr. 
Locke,  in  an  idle  hour,  had  been  re-reading  Pen- 
dennis,  that  he  had  relished  once  again  those  won- 
derful chapters  recording  the  good  Major's 
manceuvers  to  rescue  Pen  from  the  wiles  of  Emily 
Costigan.  Supposing,  as  he  closed  the  book,  that 
his  inborn  streak  of  perversity  had  flashed  across 
his  mind  the  question,  what  would  have  happened 
if  the  Major,  after  rescuing  Pen,  had  himself 
fallen  victim  to  the  charms  of  the  Fotheringay? 
Of  course,  the  analogy  must  not  be  forced  too  far. 
There  is  not  one  note  in  common  between  Mr. 
Locke's  group  of  characters  and  those  of  Thack- 
eray, because  his  mind  worked  along  an  entirely 
different  groove.  But  the  comparison  serves  to 
illustrate  his  characteristic  way  of  turning  the 
ordinary  situations  of  life  upside-down.     Substi- 


172  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

tute  for  the  punctilious  and  dignified  Major  a 
man  whom  fate  has  picked  out  as  a  victim  of  its 
grimmest  humor — a  man  snatched  from  a  proud 
eminence  of  statesmanship  and  confronted  with 
the  fact  that  a  painful  malady  gives  him  less  than 
six  months  of  remaining  life.  Substitute  for  the 
placid  and  rather  bovine  Emily  a  wonderful,  mag- 
netic creature  of  slumbrous  fire;  a  famous  trainer 
and  exhibitor  of  wild  beasts,  with  the  lithe  grace 
of  a  panther  in  all  her  movements,  and  the  yellow 
glow  of  a  cat's  eyes  in  her  glance.  Substitute  for 
little  Bows  the  equally  devoted  and  far  more  gro- 
tesque figure  of  a  Greek  dwarf  rejoicing  in  the 
name  of  Anastasius  Papadopoulos,  with  his  com- 
pany of  trained  cats,  his  extraordinary  jargon  of 
modern  languages  and  his  homicidal  mania,  riot- 
ing through  the  book  like  a  figure  taken  straight 
out  of  an  Offenbach  libretto — and  you  have  a  fair 
idea  of  the  structure  and  material  of  Simon  the 
Jester. 

To  turn  from  the  relative  mediocrity  of  these 
last  two  volumes  to  The  Glory  of  Clementina, 
which  followed  them  rather  closely  in  point  of 
of  time,  is  to  experience  a  genuine  and  unexpected 
pleasure — and  also  to  feel  the  comforting  assur- 
ance that,  even  if  Mr.  Locke's  talent  has  in  a  meas- 
ure been  commercialized,  he  has  his  hours  of  inde- 
pendence. Despite  its  title,  The  Glory  of  Clem- 
entina is  quite  as  much  the  story  of  a  man  as  of  a 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  173 

woman ;  and  both  the  man  and  the  woman  have 
reached  that  point  in  life  which  thoughtless  young 
people  are  apt  to  regard  as  middle  age,  but  which 
nevertheless  still  has  many  of  the  best  years  ahead 
of  it.  The  man  is  in  certain  respects  a  twentieth 
century  Job — the  credit  of  this  comparison  is  due, 
not  to  the  reviewer,  but  to  Mr.  Locke  himself — 
like  Job,  he  has  always  prospered  abundantly ;  the 
good  things  of  life  have  come  to  him  without  effort, 
and  no  disappointment  or  deception  has  ever 
shaken  his  child-like  faith  in  the  fundamental  kind- 
liness and  honesty  of  his  fellow-men.  At  the  open- 
ing of  the  story  he  is  a  widower  of  some  years' 
standing  and  the  nominal  senior  partner  in  an 
old  and  highly  respected  law  firm,  the  practical 
management  of  which  he  has  for  years  entrusted 
to  the  junior  member  of  the  firm.  His  own  time 
is  pleasantly  filled  in  with  archeological  pur- 
suits ;  and  a  newly  received  case  of  flint  arrow- 
heads or  some  fragments  of  a  cave-dweller's  skull 
afford  him  the  keenest  enjoyment  that  his  placid 
life  has  known.  All  of  a  sudden,  as  in  the  case 
of  Job,  the  even  tenor  of  his  life  is  interrupted. 
His  junior  partner  absconds,  leaving  a  mountain 
of  debts,  a  stain  of  dishonor  upon  the  old  firm 
name,  and  an  unpleasant  question  whether  he  him- 
self has  not  been  guilty  of  criminal  negligence. 
The  ungentle  treatment  that  he  receives  in  the 
course  of  the  inevitable  prosecution  that  follows, 


174  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

the  caustic  personalities  indulged  in  by  the  public 
press,  the  cold  reception  that  he  meets  from  for- 
mer friends,  all  play  their  part  in  undermining  his 
faith  in  human  nature;  and  when,  close  upon  the 
heels  of  these  misfortunes,  there  comes,  first,  the 
news  that  a  rich  old  uncle  had  disinherited  him ; 
and,  secondly,  the  discovery  of  a  letter  which  con- 
vinces him  of  the  faithlessness  of  the  dead  wife 
around  whose  memory  he  has  built  a  sort  of  shrine, 
the  critical  point  is  reached,  and  a  series  of  explo- 
sions  of  considerable  violence  are  bound  to  fol- 
low.    On  the  other  hand,  we  have  in  Clementina 
a  woman  whose  illusions  all  died  in  early  youth. 
She  has  gone  through  the  years  which  followed, 
with  no  expectation  of  happiness,  no  belief  that 
the  world  has  anything  in  store  for  her,  excepting 
such  material  gain  as  she  can  wrest  from  it  with 
the  work  of  her  own  hands.     By  profession  she  is 
a  portrait  painter,  and  is  already  recognized  as 
one  of  the  most  able  and  most  popular  artists  in 
all  London.     She   can   command   her   own  price; 
she  has  means  to  live  where  and  how  she  pleases, 
to  robe  herself  regally,  to  be  an  important  factor 
in  the  social  world.     But  she  chooses,  instead,  to 
remain  in  her  old  Bohemian  surroundings,  to  wear 
shabby,  out-of-date  clothes,  to  twist  her  hair  into 
any  sort  of  a  coil  that  will  take  the  least  possible 
trouble,  and  altogether  allow  herself  to  grow  old 
before  her  time.     These  two  human  beings,  the 


WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE  175 

man  in  whom  pessimism  is  a  newborn  and  abnormal 
trait,  and  the  woman  who  for  half  her  life  has  not 
known  what  it  is  to  trust  her  fellow-men,  are 
thrown  together  by  Mr.  Locke,  through  a  series  of 
characteristically  whimsical  associations,  skilfully 
calculated  to  bring  to  the  surface  whatever  latent 
tenderness  may  still  be  lurking  in  each  of  them ; 
and  any  one  familiar  with  Mr.  Locke's  methods 
may  make  a  fairly  accurate  guess  as  to  the  final 
outcome.  One  cannot,  however,  resist  the  impulse 
to  add  just  this  one  last  word:  namely,  that  al- 
though many  another  writer  has  depicted  the  re- 
juvenating power  of  love,  no  one  has  ever  done  it 
in  a  bolder  or  more  brilliantly  spectacular  man- 
ner than  that  of  Mr.  Locke,  in  the  chapter  show- 
ing us  Clementina  in  all  her  glory,  presiding  at  a 
banquet  especially  designed  to  enhance  her  own 
charms  and  throw  her  one  and  only  rival  everlast- 
ingly into  the  shade. 

This  is  a  propitious  moment  at  which  to  take 
temporary  leave  of  Mr.  Locke.  With  Septimus 
he  came  to  the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  quite  ob- 
viously took  the  wrong  turning.  It  looks  now  as 
though  he  had  discovered  his  mistake  in  time  and 
had  made  haste  to  retrace  his  steps  and  get  his  feet 
once  more  planted  firmly  on  his  one  sure  path. 
An  indulgent  irony,  a  kindly  and  sympathetic  un- 
derstanding of  the  foibles  and  follies  of  his 
brother  men  and  sister  women  is  the  underlying 


176  WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

note  of  all  his  books,  the  best  and  the  worst  alike. 
"  When  the  soul  laughs,  tears  come  into  the  eyes," 
says  Berzelius  Nibbidard  Paragot;  and  it  is  with 
this  same  paradoxical  mingling  of  emotions,  with 
a  mist  before  the  eyes  and  laughter  in  the  soul, 
that  one  reads  the  best  pages  of  William  John 
Locke. 


JOHX  GALSWORTHY 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

The  obvious  facts  about  Mr.  John  Galsworthy's 
position  in  literature  at  the  present  hour  may  be 
briefly  summed  up  as  follows :  He  is  still,  com- 
paratively speaking,  a  young  man,  being  yet  in 
the  early  forties ;  he  has  produced  six  novels  and  a 
couple  of  volumes  of  brief  sketches  which  have 
received  much  discriminating  praise,  and  little,  if 
any,  serious  censure ;  he  has  produced  several 
plays  which  have  met  with  cordial  approval  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic ;  and  he  has  been  hailed 
in  England  as  one  of  the  foremost  apostles  of  the 
new  school  of  fiction.  It  is  interesting  to  inquire 
to  what  extent  this  flatteringly  high  valuation  is 
deserved. 

There  are  almost  as  many  ways  of  measuring 
the  worth  of  a  novel  as  there  are  critics.  Yet, 
whatever  standard  of  criticism  we  may  adopt,  the 
fact  remains  that  at  least  three  factors  are  essen- 
tial to  the  production  of  fiction:  First,  the  au- 
thor's ability  to  see  life  as  it  is ;  secondly,  his  pos- 
session of  certain  definite  ideas  about  what  he 
sees ;  and  lastly,  a  mastery  of  the  technique  requi- 
site to  convert  these  ideas  into  a  piece  of  finished 

177 


178  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

artistry.  In  other  words,  the  importance  of  any 
novelist  may  be  fairly  well  determined  by  inquiring 
as  to  his  methods,  his  material  and  his  philosophy 
of  life.  Let  us  consider  these  three  questions  in 
their  relation  to  Mr.  Galsworthy. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  conceded  that  the 
author  of  Fraternity  has  come  to  be  a  craftsman 
of  high  order.  His  work,  even  that  of  his  earlier 
period  in  which  the  apprentice  touch  is  still  per- 
ceptible, conveys  an  impression  of  unity,  of  ab- 
solute singleness  of  purpose  and  of  mood.  He 
seems  to  have  known  by  instinct,  from  the  begin- 
ning, certain  principles  of  good  construction 
which  many  another  novelist  of  importance  has 
acquired  slowly  and  gropingly,  or  perhaps  has 
never  acquired  at  all.  He  has  an  admirable 
sense  of  proportion;  he  never  wastes  time  or 
space  on  minor  characters  or  unessential  descrip- 
tions. He  possesses,  beyond  any  other  English 
novelist  of  the  younger  generation,  that  invaluable 
gift  of  making  every  little  detail  of  character, 
every  separate  brush-stroke  of  his  minutely  care- 
ful backgrounds  convey  something  essential  to  our 
comprehension  of  his  story  as  a  whole.  As  an 
observant  critic  recently  pointed  out  in  the  West- 
minster Review,  Mr.  Galsworthy  shares  with  Dick- 
ens a  tendency  to  personify  inanimate  objects,  to 
describe,  for  instance,  the  physiognomy  of  a  house, 
as  though  it  were  possessed  of  human  features — 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  179 

but  with  this  vital  difference,  that  Dickens  care- 
lessly threw  off  such  descriptions  through  a 
whimsical  love  of  them  for  their  own  sake,  while 
behind  the  similar  passages  in  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
writings  there  always  lies  a  definite  purpose,  the 
purpose  of  showing  how  man  and  his  environment 
react  upon  each  other — how,  for  instance,  the 
personality  of  a  certain  house  reveals  in  a  curi- 
ously intimate  way  the  character  of  its  occupants. 
Furthermore,  Mr.  Galsworthy  started,  not  only 
with  a  certain  intuitive  knowledge  of  technique, 
but  with  what  is  still  more  valuable,  an  unusual 
power  of  self-criticism.  His  published  volumes, 
taken  in  chronological  order,  disclose  most  sig- 
nificantly his  aptitude  for  learning,  his  ability  to 
see  the  weak  points  in  his  structure  and  to  avoid 
them  in  subsequent  productions.  Considered 
purely  from  the  point  of  technique,  each  novel 
shows  a  successive  forward  stride,  a  realization 
that  such-and-such  an  error  must  not  be  commit- 
ted again.  Villa  Rabein,  published  as  early  as 
1900,  is  in  this  connection  a  negligible  quantity; 
it  is  a  pleasant  little  story  of  a  love  match  which 
arouses  family  opposition  because  the  man  in 
question  is  not  merely  a  struggling  painter,  but 
something  of  an  anarchist  besides.  The  handling 
of  the  plot  is  adequate  enough,  considered  as  a 
first  attempt;  yet  the  book  contains  scarcely  a 
hint  of  the  really  big  and  serious  work  which  was 


180  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

to  come  later  from  the  same  hand.  The  Island 
Pharisees,  which  followed  after  an  interval  of 
four  years,  brought  Mr.  Galsworthy  for  the  first 
time  into  prominence  and  revealed  his  character- 
istic outlook  upon  life.  As  is  generally  admitted, 
it  is,  in  point  of  construction,  the  weakest  of  all 
his  stories,  the  one  with  the  thinnest  plot.  It  is 
merely  the  chronicle  of  the  experiences  of  a  man 
who,  because  he  has  grown  disgusted  with  the 
smug  self-complacency  of  the  particular  social 
environment  to  which  he  was  born,  tries  to  escape 
from  it,  and  to  this  end  moves  successively  through 
the  various  other  social  circles  of  modern  British 
life ;  and  everywhere,  in  the  higher  strata,  equally 
with  the  lower,  he  encounters  practically  the  same 
smugness,  the  same  Pharisaical  thanking  of  God. 
With  all  its  structural  weakness,  The  Island 
Pharisees  was  a  book  that  loomed  up  rather  large 
above  the  average  shallowness  of  current  fiction. 
Yet  Mr.  Galsworthy  learned  from  it  the  profitable 
lesson  that  a  picaresque  string  of  episodes,  with 
a  constant  procession  of  new  scenes  and  new  peo- 
ple, even  when  bound  together  by  an  unmistakable 
singleness  of  purpose,  falls  short  of  the  higher 
standard  of  good  construction.  At  all  events,  in 
his  following  volume,  The  Man  of  Property,  he 
once  and  for  all  abandoned  the  picaresque  method. 
In  spite  of  a  certain  rather  formidable  bulkiness 
and  an  almost  too  obtrusive  purpose,  The  Man 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  181 

of  Property  is  a  strong  candidate  for  first  place 
among  Mr.  Galsworthy's  published  novels.  At 
least,  it  is  the  one  which  most  persistently  refuses 
to  be  forgotten,  and  for  that  reason  demands  a 
somewhat  extended  consideration  when  we  come 
to  take  up  his  separate  volumes.  It  is  the  chroni- 
cle of  an  English  family  of  the  stolid  upper  mid- 
dle class,  a  family  whose  numerous  ramifications 
leave  the  reader  almost  dizzy  with  their  com- 
plexity. It  is  as  though  Zola's  Rougon-Macquart 
cycle  were  condensed  within  the  limits  of  a  single 
volume.  No  one  can  say  that  the  task  is  not  skil- 
fully performed ;  the  intricate  interlacings  and 
crossings  of  all  these  varied  family  interests  are  as 
elaborately  and  as  finely  patterned  as  a  piece  of 
hand-made  lace — but,  like  fine  lace,  they  need  the 
eye  of  a  connoisseur  to  appreciate  them.  We  all 
know  that  in  certain  books,  as  in  real  life,  it  is  im- 
possible to  see  the  woods  because  of  the  trees ;  but 
it  does  not  help  us  to  see  clearly,  if  an  author 
takes,  as  Mr.  Galsworthy  has  done,  just  one  single 
family  tree,  and  then  envelops  us  in  the  impene- 
trable tangle  of  its  prolific  leafage.  The  Man  of 
Property  taught  Mr.  Galsworthy  two  important 
truths :  first,  that  economy  of  means  demands  that 
a  novelist  shall  strive  for  a  maximum  of  effect 
with  a  minimum  of  characters ;  and  secondly,  that 
however  keenly  and  vitally  a  novelist  may  be  in- 
terested in  the  doctrine  that  he  advocates,  he  must 


182  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

not  let  it  become  more  important  to  him  than  his 
art,  or  he  will  inevitably  tend  more  and  more 
towards  writing  sermons,  instead  of  novels. 

The  Country  House,  which  is  admittedly  the 
most  generally  popular  of  all  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
novels,  represents  his  first  attempt  at  strictly 
economical  construction,  his  first  rigorous  elimi- 
nation of  all  incidents  and  characters  not  structur- 
ally essential.  It  is  a  human  drama  concerning 
just  one  small  group  of  men  and  women,  yet  in- 
volving principles  of  wide  ethical  import;  the 
stage  setting  is  limited  for  the  most  part  to  the 
happenings  within  the  house  and  grounds  of  one 
county  family ;  while  the  actual  duration  of  time 
in  which  the  action  takes  place  shows  a  similar 
praiseworthy  self-restraint.  Having  tested  his 
strength  in  the  matter  of  close  construction  on  a 
comparatively  modest  theme — for  The  Country 
House  is  essentially  of  lesser  magnitude  than  its 
predecessors — he  now  felt  himself  ready  to  at- 
tempt what  still  remains  his  most  ambitious  effort, 
Fraternity.  Here  is  a  book  with  a  world-wide 
theme,  the  Brotherhood  of  Man ;  all  London,  with 
its  social  pageantry,  its  jostling  throngs,  its  teem- 
ing, reeking  slums,  is  mirrored  back  with  an  effect 
of  motley,  crowded  human  life,  a  sense  of  sheer 
weight  of  numbers,  of  humanity  in  the  bulk,  such 
as  very  few  other  novelists  have  succeeded  in  giv- 
ing within  similar  limits.     For,  when  you  analyze 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  183 

it,  this  huge  epic  drama  of  modern  British  life  re- 
solves itself  down  to  just  fourteen  characters 
with  what  we  may  call  speaking  parts.  It  fur- 
nishes an  example  of  economy  of  construction 
that  closely  approaches  a  sort  of  literary  leger- 
demain. 

Passing  over,  for  the  moment,  The  Patrician, 
which  offers  nothing  salient  in  point  of  construc- 
tion, we  may  take  up  the  second  of  our  three  ques- 
tions, namely,  the  nature  of  Mr.  Galsworth's  ma- 
terial. In  spite  of  his  breadth  of  outlook  upon  life, 
the  substance  of  Mr.  Galworthy's  novels  offers  a 
rather  surprising  sameness.  The  keynote  first 
struck  in  The  Island  PJiarisees,  is  the  keynote  of 
each  successive  volume.  British  stolidity,  British 
insularity,  British  conservatism,  the  unvarying 
fixity  of  the  social  system,  the  sacrifice  of  indi- 
vidual needs  and  cravings  to  caste  and  precedent 
and  public  opinion ;  these  are  the  themes  which 
Mr.  Galsworthy  never  wearies  of  satirizing  with  a 
mordant  irony.  Usually,  it  is  the  solid  upper  mid- 
dle class,  the  class  that  represents  property,  vested 
interests,  capital  gained  in  trade  or  in  clever  specu- 
lation in  land.  If  The  Man  of  Property  were  as 
good  a  piece  of  work  technically  as  it  is  ethically, 
it  would  easily  stand  at  the  head  of  its  author's 
achievement.  Nowhere  else  has  he  given  us,  with 
such  sustained  and  sardonic  irony,  a  picture  of 
the  monumental  complacency  of  the  man  of  money, 


184  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

blindly  believing  in  his  own  supreme  importance, 
living  in  a  narrow  little  world  of  his  own  making, 
and  unaware  that  there  is  anything  higher  in  life 
than  the  treadmill  of  his  own  daily  routine,  the 
sum  of  his  yearly  dividends,  the  quality  and  vin- 
tage of  his  nightly  bottle.     The  Man  of  Property 
is  one  of  those  complex,  crowded  books  that  cannot 
be  mentally  assimilated  at  the  first  reading.     Al- 
though this  is  in  a  measure  a  fault,  tending  to 
limit  Mr.   Galsworthy's  audience,  yet  there  is   a 
certain  sophisticated  enjoyment  in  the  cumulative 
effect  of  a  second  reading,  the  discovery  of  little 
subtleties    previously    overlooked,    mannerisms    of 
phrase  and  action  which  it  is  impossible  to  forget. 
When  the  volume  first  appeared,  at  least  one  en- 
thusiastic reviewer  compared  the  pleasure  he  de- 
rived from  it  to  that  of  tasting  rare  and  priceless 
wine — and   the   praise   was   justified,   both   in   its 
generosity  and  in  the  implied  limitation  that,  in 
order  to   appreciate   the   volume,   one  must   have 
the  trained  palate  of  the  literary  connoisseur.     To 
many  readers  it  gives  an  impression  of  dullness ;  a 
conscious  effort  is  required  to  keep  in  mind  the 
many  brothers  and  sisters,  the  aunts  and  uncles 
and   cousins   who  make  up   the  doughty   clan   of 
Forsytes — for,     with     just     one     exception,    the 
scheme  of  the  book  admits  of  no  interloper  from 
outside   the   immediate   family   connections.      Un- 
deniably this  in  itself  is  an  achievement  of  some 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  185 

magnitude — this  faithful  portraiture  of  an  entire 
family  group,  so  vividly  and  minutely  differen- 
tiated that  we  are  conscious,  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  of  the  strong  family  likeness  and  the  equally 
strong,  one  is  tempted  to  say  aggressive,  individu- 
ality of  every  one  of  its  score  or  more  members. 
But  Mr.  Galsworthy  is  doing  something  a  good 
deal  bigger  than  painting  family  portraits.  That 
the  Forsytes,  as  the  name  implies,  are  symbolic  of 
the  great  conservative  class  in  England,  would  be 
self-evident,  even  if  the  author  had  not  taken  the 
pains,  through  the  lips  of  one  of  his  characters, 
Young  Jolyon,  to  tell  us  quite  precisely  what  a 
Forsyte  stands  for.  Young  Jolyon,  the  one  black 
sheep  of  the  family,  the  one  who  has  belied  the  tra- 
ditions of  his  house,  by  deserting  his  wife  and 
child  and  disappearing  from  social  circles  in  com- 
pany with  a  young  woman  of  no  importance,  save 
for  the  fact  that  he  happened  to  love  her  and  she 
him — Young  Jolyon,  in  after  years,  chances  to 
meet  Bosinney,  the  gifted  but  penniless  interloper 
whom  June  Forsyte,  Young  Jolyon's  daughter,  is 
soon  to  marry.  The  conversation  turns,  not  un- 
naturally, upon  the  peculiarities  of  the  family 
which  Bosinney  is  about  to  enter: 

"  You  talk  about  them,"  said  Bosinney,  "  as  if  they 
were  half  England." 

"  They  are,"  retorted  Young  Jolyon,  "  half  Eng- 


186  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

land,  and  the  better  half,  too,  the  safe  half,  the  three 
per  cent,  half,  the  half  that  counts.  It's  their  wealth 
and  security  that  makes  everything  possible;  makes 
your  art  possible,  makes  literature,  science,  even  reli- 
gion, possible.  Without  Forsytes,  who  believe  in  none 
of  these  things,  but  turn  them  all  to  use,  where  should 
we  be?  My  dear  sir,  the  Forsytes  are  the  middlemen, 
the  commercials,  the  pillars  of  society,  the  cornerstones 
of  convention,  everything  that  is  admirable !  " 

'"  I  don't  know  whether  I  catch  your  drift,"  said 
Bosinney,  "  but  I  fancy  there  are  plenty  of  Forsytes, 
as  you  call  them,  in  my  profession." 

"  Certainly,"  replied  Young  Jolyon,  "  the  great 
majority  of  architects,  painters  or  writers  have  no 
principles,  like  any  other  Forsytes.  Art,  literature, 
religion,  survive  by  virtue  of  the  few  cranks  who 
really  believe  in  such  things,  and  the  many  Forsytes 
who  make  a  commercial  use  of  them.  At  a  low  esti- 
mate, three-fourths  of  our  Royal  Academicians  are 
Forsytes,  seven-eighths  of  our  novelists,  a  large  pro- 
portion of  our  press.  Of  science  I  won't  speak. 
They  are  magnificently  represented  in  religion;  in 
the  House  of  Commons  perhaps  more  numerous  than 
anywhere;  the  aristocracy  speaks  for  itself.  But  I 
am  not  laughing:  it  is  dangerous  to  go  against  a  ma- 
jority,— and  what  a  majority!  " 

Such,  in  Mr.  Galsworthy's  own  phrasing,  is  the 
symbolic  meaning  underlying  the  specific  story  of 
Soames  Forsyte,  the  Man  of  Property.  Young 
Jolyon  is  not  laughing,  neither  is  Mr.  Galsworthy 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  187 

— he  is  simply  setting  forth  existing  conditions  as 
he  sees  them,  underscoring  them  here  and  there 
a  little  grimly,  yet,  like  the  conscientious  realist 
that  he  is,  leaving  us  to  make  what  we  will  of 
them.  But  whatever  we  do  make  of  them — 
whether  we  think  them  the  backbone  of  society  or 
the  chief  drag  upon  the  world's  advance — he  is 
right  in  holding  that  there  is  no  room  for  laughter. 
They  are  too  formidable.  With  their  cumulative 
weight  of  safe  investments,  their  impregnable  bul- 
warks of  landed  property,  they  stand  as  exponents 
of  the  great  physical  law  of  inertia,  the  force  that 
maintains  the  established  order.  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy's specific  story  concerns  a  crisis  in  the 
House  of  Forsyte  which  shook  its  defenses  but 
failed  to  break  them  down.  In  the  opening 
chapter,  we  witness  one  of  its  rare  family  reunions, 
such  as  mark  the  solemn  occasions  of  birth,  mar- 
riage and  death — for  the  Forsytes,  while  show- 
ing a  solid  phalanx  against  the  world  at  large,  are 
individually  too  self-centered,  too  fixed  in  their  own 
narrow  orbits,  to  herd  together  without  serious 
motives.  The  purpose  of  the  gathering  in  ques- 
tion is  to  ratify,  although  grudgingly,  June  For- 
syte's revolutionary  act  of  engaging  herself  to  an 
impecunious,  Bohemian  architect,  a  "  half-tamed 
leopard,"  who  is  either  ignorant  or  disdainful  of 
the  smaller  social  conventions,  and  has  actually 
been  guilty  of  paying  a  formal  call  upon  June's 


188  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

maiden  aunts  arrayed  in  a  strange,  outlandish 
slouch  hat,  redolent  of  the  Latin  Quarter.  The 
way  in  which  this  interloper  reacts  upon  the  clan 
of  Forsytes,  who  receive  him  with  what  grace  they 
can  muster,  is  in  itself  good  comedy,  of  the  sort, 
one  likes  to  think,  that  might  have  won  from  the 
author  of  Vanity  Fair  the  indulgent  approval  of  a 
kindred  spirit. 

But  the  structural  importance  of  this  open- 
ing scene  is  that  it  introduces  Bosinney  the 
Bohemian  to  Soames  Forsyte  the  Man  of  Prop- 
erty and  to  his  beautiful  and  secretly  disillusioned 
wife,  Irene.  In  his  stolid  security  of  possession, 
Soames  has  not  a  glimmer  of  suspicion  of  his  wife's 
growing  physical  aversion.  Having  at  last,  on 
the  threshold  of  middle  age,  found  a  woman  whom 
he  wished  to  marry,  he  has  won  her,  just  as 
throughout  his  life  he  has  always  won  the  things  he 
coveted,  by  slow,  indomitable  persistence.  And, 
after  acquisition,  it  never  once  occurs  to  his  monu- 
mental self-complacence  that  her  love  has  not 
necessarily  been  included  in  the  bargain.  Up  to 
the  meeting  with  Bosinney,  his  rights  of  possession 
have  suffered  no  encroachment.  But  shortly  after- 
wards, Soames  makes  a  series  of  miscalculations, 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  dealing  with  tempera- 
mental people,  devoid  of  a  fitting  reverence  for 
property.  He  sees  vaguely  that  something  is 
wrong   with    Irene ;   he  thinks   that    she   needs    a 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  189 

change  of  scene  and  a  new  interest  in  life.  A 
country  house  and  the  novelty  of  planning  and 
building  it  seem  to  offer  the  required  solution. 
Furthermore,  it  will  give  Bosinney  just  the  open- 
ing that  he  needs,  it  will  launch  him  upon  a  mount- 
ing tide  of  prosperity ;  it  will  please  June,  of 
whom  he  is  really  fond,  it  will  allow  him  to  pose 
as  a  benefactor,  a  patron  of  art — and,  inciden- 
tally, he  expects  to  get  Bosinney's  services  at  bar- 
gain rates  in  return  for  his  condescension  in  em- 
ploying him. 

But  matters  work  out  far  otherwise.  Bos- 
inney, instead  of  being  grateful,  seems  to  think 
that  it  is  he  who  is  bestowing  a  favor ;  he  refuses  to 
brook  any  interference,  the  cost  of  the  new  house 
augments  day  by  day,  and  the  result  is,  not  an 
open  breach,  a  manly  agreement  to  disagree  and 
end  the  contract,  but  a  series  of  petty  bickerings 
and  temporary  truces.  And  all  the  while,  June 
sees  her  lover  slowly  slipping  from  her,  and  Bos- 
inney and  Irene  find  themselves  gliding  downgrade 
at  a  momentum  that  has  escaped  their  control. 
Then  comes  the  day  when  Soames's  tardy  jealousy 
is  awakened,  and  he  retaliates  in  a  way  eminently 
characteristic  of  a  Man  of  Property:  he  sues 
Bosinney  for  breach  of  contract  for  having  ex- 
ceeded the  specified  estimates.  What  follows 
close  upon  this  act  of  retaliation  is  too  frank,  too 
audacious,  too  poignantly  cruel  to  be  openly  dis- 


190  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

cussed,  outside  of  a  legal  treatise  upon  the  marital 
relations.  Even  Mr.  Galsworthy's  carefully  veiled 
exposition  of  Soames's  brief  hour  of  madness 
touches  the  limit  of  what  is  permissible  in  fiction. 
Nevertheless,  as  the  final  word  on  that  survival  of 
feudalism,  the  Englishman's  claim  of  property 
rights  over  his  own  wife,  her  possessions,  her  lib- 
erty, her  person,  the  chapter  in  question  is  unas- 
sailable ;  it  is  structurally  perfect,  like  that  of  the 
analogous  scene  in  Maupassant's  Une  Vie, — with 
this  big  difference  in  favor  of  Mr.  Galsworthy, 
that  he  gets  full  structural  value  out  of  the  epi- 
sode, and  Maupassant  did  not.  Certain  reviewers 
curiously  misunderstood  the  concluding  chapters, 
and  gravely  explained  that  Bosinney,  learning 
that  Soames  Forsyte's  suit  against  him  has  re- 
sulted in  a  verdict  that  will  leave  him  bankrupt, 
deliberately  commits  suicide  by  walking  in  front 
of  an  omnibus  during  a  London  fog,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  knows  Irene  has  left  her  husband 
and  is  awaiting  him  at  his  chambers.  The  key- 
note to  the  real  ending  lies  in  the  words  with 
which  Soames  tries  to  silence  his  clamorous  sense 
of  shame,  that  "women  never  tell  that  sort  of 
thing."  But  in  the  next  chapter  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  Irene  in  what  is  destined  to  be  her 
last  interview  on  earth  with  Bosinney;  later  we 
see  him  striding  blindly  through  the  fog,  con- 
sumed with  impotent  anger  and  dreams  of  venge- 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  191 

ancc — and  then  in  the  final  picture,  we  see  a 
broken,  miserable  woman,  who  has  crept  back  to 
her  husband's  hearthstone,  too  numb  with  grief 
from  the  news  flung  at  her  from  newspaper  head- 
lines, to  care  what  fate  the  future  holds  for  her. 
And  we  leave  them  together,  the  husband  and  wife, 
the  owner  and  his  chattel — and  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life,  Soames  Forsyte  has  become  conscious 
of  the  futility  and  the  emptiness  of  such  owner- 
ship. He  has  defended  his  own,  according  to  his 
lights,  and  he  has  wrought  nothing  but  devas- 
tation. 

In  its  narrowest  sense  the  central  situation  of 
A  Man  of  Property  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of 
fiction :  a  woman  with  too  much  temperament  in 
bondage  to  the  wrong  man.  The  same  is  true  of 
The  Country  House,  with  this  difference,  that  the 
husband  of  the  latter  novel  is  a  man  of  coarse  na- 
ture and  dissolute  habits.  Then  comes  the  inevita- 
ble Other  Man,  sympathetic  friendship  drifting 
steadily  along  the  course  of  danger ;  then  the  fore- 
seen catastrophe,  and  the  impending  divorce.  One 
of  the  most  hopeful  things  about  Mr.  Galsworthy, 
however,  is  that  he  realizes  that  what  happens, 
in  fact  or  in  fiction,  does  not  matter  half  so  much 
as  the  way  in  which  people  accept  it — that  there 
may,  perhaps,  be  literally  nothing  new  under  the 
sun  in  the  way  of  concrete  facts,  but  that  in  the 
reaction  of  these  facts  upon  the  minds  of  men  and 


192  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

women  there  is  something  perennially  new.  If  the 
story  of  George  Pendyce  and  Helen  Bellew  were 
the  only  interest  or  even  the  central  interest  of 
The  Country  House,  there  would  have  been  small 
purpose  in  writing  it  and  even  less  purpose  in  dis- 
cussing it.  But  what  Mr.  Galsworthy  has  done 
is  to  use  this  episode  of  human  frailty  much  as  a 
scientist  uses  a  germ  culture,  to  study  its  effects 
upon  others.  The  central  interest  is  the  little 
world  of  English  country  life,  within  a  few  miles' 
radius  of  the  village  of  Worsted  Skeynes,  and 
more  especially  the  world  which  centers  in  the 
ancient  and  honorable  house  of  Pendyce.  It  is 
a  wonderfully  vivid  and  detailed  picture  of  stolid 
and  complacent  British  conservatism,  a  consist- 
ent worship  of  the  God  of  Things  as  They  Are. 
Mr.  Horace  Pendyce,  the  present  head  of  the 
house,  is  shown  to  us  as  a  man  whose  daily  prayer 
is,  "  Make  me  such  a  man  as  my  father  was  be- 
fore me,  and  make  my  son  after  me  such  a  man  as  I 
am  to-day."  But  it  happens  that  his  eldest  son 
George  is  not  in  the  least  such  a  man  as  his  father, 
or  he  never  could  have  so  far  forgotten  his  duty 
to  the  traditional  honor  of  the  name  of  Pendyce 
as  to  bring  upon  it  the  stain  of  a  divorce  suit. 
The  episode  of  George's  love  for  Helen  Bellew  is 
sketched  in  between  the  lines,  as  it  were,  in  some- 
thing of  the  indirect,  intangible  fashion  that  Mr. 
James   adopted  for  showing  us   Chad  Newsome's 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  193 

similar  experience  in  The  Ambassadors.  Mr. 
Galsworthy  has  a  trick  of  saying  a  great  deal 
very  much  to  the  point  in  just  one  illuminating 
phrase,  as  where  he  makes  another  woman  define 
Helen  Bellcw  as  "  one  of  those  women  you  never 
can  look  at  without  seeing  that  she  has  a — a — 
body."  You  catch  fugitive  glimpses  of  the  lovers, 
now  in  the  gloom  of  a  conservatory,  now  in  the 
tawdry  seclusion  of  some  isolated  restaurant ;  but 
even  these  glimpses  are  not  direct,  they  are  re- 
flected through  the  eyes  of  some  third  person,  the 
horrified  gaze  of  the  rector  of  Worsted  Skeynes,  or 
the  obsequious  glance  of  the  cross-eyed,  consump- 
tive waiter  as  he  "lays  her  cloak  upon  her  with 
adoring  hands."  But  what  we  do  see,  in  the  full, 
clear  light  of  day,  is  the  consternation  that  over- 
spreads the  world  of  Worsted  Skeynes ;  the  disar- 
rangement of  an  intricate  and  delicately  adjusted 
social  order ;  the  break  in  a  family  tradition ;  the 
wrong  done  by  the  future  master  of  Worsted 
Skeynes,  not  to  the  woman,  not  to  himself,  but 
to  the  name  he  bears.  That  is  the  point  of  view 
upon  which  Mr.  Galsworthy  turns  the  full,  white 
light  of  his  vigorous  style.  The  one  thing  that 
the  elder  Pendyce  fears  more  than  all  else  at  this 
juncture  is  that  "  George  may  stand  by  her," 
may  even  want  eventually  to  marry  her,  and  thus 
bring  an  evil  strain  into  the  future  generations  of 
Pendyce.     But,   like   so   many   situations   in   real 


194  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

life,  matters  adjust  themselves  quite  simply  and  a 
great  deal  of  anxiety  has  been  expended  for  noth- 
ing. The  lady  wearies  of  the  attachment,  the 
divorce  proceedings  are  dropped,  the  dignity  of 
the  house  of  Pendyce  is  saved,  and  behind  it  all 
we  perceive  Mr.  Galsworthy's  ironic  smile  at  the 
injustice  and  the  follies  of  the  Social  Fabric. 

Fraternity,  which  comes  next  in  chronological 
order,  is  in  more  respects  than  one  a  distinct  ad- 
vance upon  its  author's  earlier  work.  It  lacks, 
to  be  sure,  something  of  that  delightful  aggres- 
siveness which  one  divines  behind  the  satiric  pose 
in  The  Man  of  Property;  it  suggests  that,  if  Mr. 
Galsworthy's  pulse  has  not  grown  calmer,  he  has 
gained  in  self-restraint.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Frater- 
nity still  stands,  both  in  method  and  in  theme,  the 
most  ambitious,  the  most  serious,  the  most  wide- 
reaching  of  all  his  novels.  In  the  London  of  to- 
day it  asks  the  world-old  question,  "  Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper?"  It  takes  up  and  develops 
with  an  epic  breadth  of  treatment  the  whole  range 
of  human  responsibility,  the  whole  mooted  prob- 
lem of  "  Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  "  And  it  does  all 
this,  not  in  the  broad,  flamboyant,  Zolaesque  man- 
ner, but  with  a  surprising  economy  of  means  in 
stage-setting  as  well  as  in  cast  of  characters.  You 
are  made  to  feel  that  you  have  been  looking  out 
over  an  immeasurable  expanse  of  life  and  survey- 
ing humanity  in  the  mass  through  all  the  infinite 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  195 

gradations  of  social  strata.  Yet  when  you  stop 
to  consider,  you  realize  that  the  whole  story  has 
been  limited  to  practically  fourteen  characters, 
the  whole  range  of  scene  to  the  interiors  of  two  or 
three  English  dwellings.  In  fact,  the  extreme 
nicety  of  the  technique,  the  rare  art  with  which 
the  art  is  concealed,  justifies  a  rather  careful  an- 
alysis of  the  structure.  The  characters  fall  into 
two  groups :  On  the  one  hand,  seven  characters 
who  live  in  a  sordid  London  tenement  and  typify 
the  "  submerged  tenth " ;  on  the  other  hand,  a 
second  seven,  a  family  of  charming,  highly  culti- 
vated people  representing  what  Mr.  Galsworthy 
has  somewhere  in  the  book  (if  I  do  not  misquote 
him)  called  the  "emerged  fiftieth."  The  second 
seven  consists  of  two  brothers,  Hilary  and  Stephen 
Dallison ;  their  wives,  Bianca  and  Cecilia,  who  hap- 
pen to  be  sisters ;  the  father  of  these  two  women, 
Sylvanus  Stone,  a  fine,  visionary,  symbolic  figure, 
but  of  unbalanced  mind — one  whom  an  earlier  age 
might  have  worshiped  as  a  prophet,  but  whom 
practical  modernity  frankly  recognizes  as  half- 
witted ;  and  lastly,  two  other  young  persons, 
Stephen's  daughter,  Thyme,  and  a  young  physi- 
cian, Martin,  whose  special  hobby  is  relief  of  the 
poor  through  improved  sanitation.  It  would  be 
easy  to  spend  many  pages  over  the  careful  sym- 
bolism in  this  group  of  seven.  No  two  brothers 
were  ever  more  unlike  than  Hilary  and  Stephen; 


196  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

no  two  sisters  ever  had  less  in  common  than 
Bianca  and  Cecilia.  Plainly  Mr.  Galsworthy 
would  have  us  understand  that  brotherhood,  the 
sort  of  brotherhood  he  has  in  mind,  has  little  to  do 
with  consanguinity.  And  yet  he  does  not  expect 
the  world  to  accept  the  wider  fraternity  that  his 
title  preaches ;  for  the  character  who  serves  as 
mouthpiece  to  proclaim  a  doctrine  of  universal 
brotherhood,  and  who  pictures  with  impressive  and 
lyric  mysticism  the  sordidness  and  self-seeking  of 
modern  life,  is  Sylvanus  Stone,  the  frail  and 
broken  old  man  whom  the  world  has  long  since 
rejected  and  labeled  imbecile.  The  other  seven 
characters,  representing  the  "  submerged  tenth," 
include  an  artist's  model  of  the  name  of  Barton; 
a  married  couple  named  Hughes,  the  wife  a  seam- 
stress, the  husband  a  street  sweeper;  a  newspaper 
vendor,  Creed,  who,  in  better  days,  was  a  butler  in 
a  family  of  social  consequence ;  and  certain  other 
inmates  of  the  same  tenement  whose  names  are  not 
material  in  a  brief  epitome  of  the  story.  Now  it 
happens  that  Hilary's  wife,  Bianca,  has  artistic 
aspirations,  and  in  the  little  model  she  finds  pre- 
cisely the  type  she  needs  for  an  ambitious  symbolic 
figure,  to  be  called  "  The  Shadow."  It  happens, 
further,  that  Hilary,  unlike  the  majority  of  his 
class,  sees  in  this  poor  girl  not  merely  a 
model,  but  a  human  being — a  half-starved,  deso- 
late little  waif,  whom  he  cannot  bear  to  allow  to 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  197 

drift  away,  without  a  proffer  of  help.  But  he 
learns  a  little  too  late  that  because  the  world  is 
what  it  is,  he  is  not  quite  a  free  agent  in  the  be- 
stowal of  charities ;  he  cannot  give  this  girl  even 
the  most  perfunctory  sort  of  help  without  setting 
in  motion  a  long  chain  of  catastrophes,  such  as 
would  be  impossible  in  the  world  of  mad  Sylvanus 
Stone's  dreams — the  world  of  universal  brother- 
hood. We  are  all  galley-slaves  to  convention, 
Mr.  Galsworthy  seems  to  say ;  we  are  so  bound 
and  hedged  in  by  our  self-made  limitations  that 
we  cannot  break  the  established  routine  to  help 
Peter  without  robbing  Paul ;  we  cannot,  nine-tenths 
of  the  time,  obey  the  social  edicts  of  our  world, 
and  then  for  one-tenth  disregard  them,  that  good 
may  come  of  it.  Hilary's  interest  in  the  girl  is 
quite  harmless;  but,  on  the  one  side  his  wife  is 
jealous,  and  there  are  plenty  of  friends  to  gossip 
and  sneer  and  believe  the  worst — and  for  a  long 
time  there  has  been  in  his  marriage  one  of  those 
little  rifts  that  lead  to  discord.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  plenty  of  people  in  the  girl's  own 
class  ready  to  misconstrue  Hilary's  motives; 
among  others,  Hughes,  the  street  cleaner,  who  has 
already  persecuted  the  girl  with  offensive  atten- 
tions. And  because  Hughes's  jealousy  drives  him 
into  a  drunken  rage,  he  attempts  one  day  to  kill 
his  overworked  drudge  of  a  wife,  is  sentenced  to  a 
month  in  jail,   and  through  his   absence  is   indi- 


198  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

rectly  responsible  for  the  death  of  his  youngest 
child.  Now,  because  old  Creed,  the  newspaper 
vendor,  was  once  a  butler,  he  still  belongs  by  in- 
stinct and  sympathies  to  a  higher  class  than  that 
into  which  he  has  drifted ;  so,  when  he  learns  that 
Hughes,  the  street  sweeper,  has  planned,  as  soon 
as  he  is  free  from  jail,  to  take  vengeance  on 
Hilary,  Creed  goes  to  warn  the  latter  that  the 
little  model,  who  has  meanwhile  become  the  secre- 
tary of  the  fanatical  Sylvanus  Stone,  must  be  sent 
away  where  Hilary  will  not  see  her  any  more. 
And  to  this  Hilary  gives  his  consent,  not  because 
he  is  afraid  of  Hughes,  but  because  his  wife, 
Bianca,  believes  she  has  grounds  for  jealousy — 
also,  we  are  allowed  to  infer,  because  Hilary  does 
not  wholly  trust  himself.  This,  in  brief,  is  the 
central  pattern  of  a  complex  story  woven  out  of 
many  threads,  showing  what  a  train  of  disasters 
may  be  set  in  motion  because  a  kind-hearted  man 
chooses  to  buy  shoes,  stockings  and  a  new  frock 
for  a  forlorn  and  shivering  girl ;  and  the  perma- 
nent estrangement  of  this  man  and  his  wife  puts 
the  last  touch  of  mordant  irony  to  this  strong  and 
earnest  volume.  And  behind  the  individual  trag- 
edies of  the  story,  the  prophetic  note  of  the  half- 
crazed  fanatic,  Sylvanus  Stone,  sounds  insistently 
as  a  leitmotiv,  pointing  out  with  the  unfailing 
optimism  of  a  fixed  idea  the  joys  of  the  millennium 
which  is  to  come  when  the  existing  order  of  things 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  199 

shall  have  passed  away.  This  fine  old  symbolic 
character  lives  wholly  in  a  dream  future ;  the 
present  is  to  him  always  a  part  of  the  past;  he 
habitually  refers  to  it  as  "  In  those  days."  Here, 
for  instance,  is  a  characteristic  utterance: 

"  They  have  been  speaking  to  me  of  an  execution. 
To  take  life  was  the  chief  mark  of  the  insensate  bar- 
barism still  prevailing  in  those  days.  It  sprang  from 
that  most  irreligious  fetish,  the  belief  in  the  perma- 
nence of  the  individual  ego  after  death.  From  the 
worship  of  that  fetish  had  come  all  the  sorrows  of 
the  human  race.  They  did  not  stop  to  love  each  other 
in  this  life;  they  were  so  sure  they  had  all  eternity 
to  do  it  in.  The  doctrine  was  an  invention  to  enable 
men  to  act  like  dogs  with  clear  consciences." 

In  short,  both  by  implication  and  directly 
through  his  mouthpiece,  Sylvanus  Stone,  Mr. 
Galsworthy  seems  to  be  saying,  with  all  the  force 
that  there  is  in  him,  that  Fraternity,  in  the 
broader  and  higher  sense,  is  even  yet  the  vision  of 
an  unbalanced  brain,  and  that  in  this  respect  so- 
ciety to-day  has  advanced  but  little  beyond  the 
Cain-and-Abel  conception  of  Brotherhood. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  the  present 
article  to  examine  the  dramatic  work  of  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy. Unquestionably,  he  has  tried  some  in- 
teresting experiments  in  that  particular  division 
of  literature,  and  has  succeeded  in  gaining  for  his 
cherished  ideas  a  wider  and  more  direct  hearing 


200  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

than  he  can  expect  for  his  books.  It  may  be  that 
he  will  tend  more  and  more  to  choose  the  drama 
as  his  vehicle  of  expression,  and  that  books  of 
the  magnitude,  the  crowded  vitality,  the  super- 
abundant suggestiveness  of  A  Man  of  Property 
and  Fraternity  are  destined  to  stand  for  a  long 
time  isolated  on  the  library  shelf.  Aside  from  his 
plays,  Mr.  Galsworthy  has  produced  nothing  for 
the  past  three  years  save  one  novel,  The  Patrician, 
for  which  no  better  summing-up  could  be  found 
than  the  familiar  Tennysonian  line,  "  icily  regular, 
splendidly  null,"  and  a  collection  of  sketches  so 
fragile  that  one  hesitates  to  dignify  them  with 
the  name  of  short  stories.  A  Motley  is  the  title 
which  he  has  chosen  to  designate  what  is  really 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  verbal  sketch  book, 
wherein  he  has  drawn  with  swift,  sure  strokes  all 
sorts  of  fugitive  impressions  made  by  people  and 
things  glimpsed  briefly  during  his  daily  comings 
and  goings.  At  one  moment,  it  is  an  unforgettable 
portrait  of  an  aged  crossing  sweeper,  twisted  and 
bowed  with  pain,  whose  indomitable  pride  alone 
keeps  him  from  the  almshouse.  Again,  it  is  a  sub- 
tle presentment  of  a  furtive  rendezvous  at  an  out- 
of-door  restaurant  in  Kensington  Gardens — a  ren- 
dezvous that  would  have  meant  nothing  to  the  ordi- 
nary spectator,  but  from  which  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
keener  eye  interprets  an  abundance  of  the  philos- 
ophy of  life.     And  still  again,  there  is  the  flash- 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  201 

light  picture  that  he  gives  us  of  a  young  French 
marine,  seen  for  an  hour  in  a  railway  carriage  on 
his  way  to  join  his  ship,  under  orders  to  sail  for 
China.  His  father  is  dead,  his  mother  is  penni- 
less ;  and  he  himself,  racked  with  a  stubborn  cough, 
foresees  dumbly  that  he  is  destined  never  to  come 
back  alive  from  that  deadly  Chinese  coast.  The 
monotony  of  his  hopeless  refrain  haunts  the 
reader  for  days  afterward : 

Tell  me — his  eyes  seem  to  ask — why  are  these 
things  so?  Why  have  I  a  mother  who  depends  on 
me  alone  when  I  am  being  sent  away  to  die?  .  .  . 
And  presently,  like  a  dumb,  herded  beast,  patient, 
mute,  carrying  his  load,  he  left  me  at  the  terminus. 
But  it  was  long  before  I  lost  the  memory  of  his  face 
and  of  that  chant  of  his,  "C'est  me  qui  est  seul  a  la 
maison.  .  .  .  C'est  me  a  une  mere.  C'est  elle  qui 
n'a  pas  le  sou!  " 

Slight  as  these  sketches  are,  A  Motley  is  a  vol- 
ume which  might  be  profitably  placed  in  the  hands 
of  any  young  aspirant  in  the  field  of  fiction,  be- 
cause it  shows  how  much  can  be  extracted  in  the 
way  of  material  from  even  the  most  trivial  inci- 
dents. And  for  an  understanding  of  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy himself,  of  the  things  which  interest  him, 
of  the  angle  of  vision  from  which  he  looks  at  life 
it  furnishes  more  than  one  indispensable  keynote. 

This  brings  us  down  to  just  one  more  volume 
which  needs   separate  mention,  and  a  brief  one, 


202  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

namely,  The  Patrician.  There  is  nothing  new 
about  its  theme;  the  only  difference  is  that  this 
time  Mr.  Galsworthy  treats  of  a  stratum  some- 
what higher  than  his  favorite  upper  middle  class. 
He  has  nothing  of  importance  to  add  to  what  he 
has  already  said  in  his  earlier  books ;  he  simply 
reiterates,  under  slightly  different  circumstances, 
the  injustice  and  unhappiness  resulting  from  the 
despotic  force  of  conservatism,  the  heavy  handi- 
cap of  those  who  live  their  lives  not  as  they  them- 
selves would  choose  but  as  their  rank  dictates.  In 
the  vital  issues  as  well  as  in  the  little  details  of 
daily  intercourse,  there  is  everywhere  and  all  the 
time  the  invincible  power  of  precedent,  the  iron- 
bound  rule  of  prescribed  conduct.  The  central 
theme  of  The  Patrician  deals  with  a  young  states- 
man whose  misfortune  it  is  to  fall  in  love  with  one 
of  the  tenants  on  the  family  estate — a  beautiful 
young  woman  living  quite  alone,  whose  isolated 
life  gives  rise  to  unkind  and  unfounded  conject- 
ures. It  turns  out  that  she  is  eminently  respecta- 
ble, the  wife  of  a  narrow-minded  curate  from 
whom  she  has  separated  and  who  refuses  to  help 
her  secure  her  freedom.  Now,  her  titled  lover 
may  make  this  woman  his  mistress,  provided  the 
fact  does  not  become  public  knowledge ;  but  by  one 
of  the  unwritten  laws  of  his  caste,  he  cannot  openly 
protect  her,  nor,  in  case  she  should  obtain  a 
divorce,   will   public   opinion  allow  him  to  marry 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  203 

her.  The  story  is  worked  out  quietly  to  a  logical 
conclusion  of  gray  and  sombre  tragedy.  Mr. 
Galsworthy  has  been  reproached  for  ending  the 
book  as  he  does  and  permitting  both  the  man  and 
the  woman  to  acquiesce  without  a  struggle  in  the 
decree  of  custom ;  he  has  even  been  misunderstood 
and  accused  of  having  changed  his  attitude 
towards  the  established  order  of  things,  and  to 
have  intended  this  book  as  a  sort  of  recantation — 
all  of  which  means  simply  that  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
art  of  self-effacement  has  become  almost  too  per- 
fect, his  irony  too  subtle  and  elusive.  Yet  in  this 
book  he  could  not  well  have  written  otherwise  than 
he  has  done.  His  purpose  was  not  to  preach  indi- 
vidual revolt,  but  simply  to  show  the  workings  of 
the  existing  system  and  the  chaos  that  it  wreaks  in 
the  lives  of  those  who  acquiesce  in  its  dictates. 

In  conclusion,  there  remain  a  few  words  to  be 
said  about  what,  for  lack  of  a  less  hackneyed  term, 
may  be  called  Mr.  Galsworthy's  philosophy  of 
life.  For  practical  purposes  it  is  somewhat  dif- 
ficult to  define  a  philosophy  so  largely  negative 
and  destructive  as  is  Mr.  Galsworthy's,  so  far  as  it 
may  be  read  between  the  lines  of  his  stories. 
Since  he  is  a  good  artist,  he  usually  refrains  in 
his  later  books  from  openly  expressing  his  personal 
views ;  and  yet,  the  resultant  impression  that  one 
brings  away  from  his  books  is,  that  if  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy were  to  be  asked,  "What  is  the  matter 


204  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

with  the  world?"  he  would  answer  sweepingly, 
"  Everything  is  the  matter !  "  What  he  inveighs 
against  is  not  specifically  the  injustice  of  existing 
marriage  and  divorce  laws,  nor  the  British  sports- 
man's thoughtless  cruelty  to  animals,  nor  the 
sharp  cleavage  of  class  from  class,  nor  any  one  of 
a  score  of  recurrent  themes.  It  is  the  System, 
with  a  capital  S,  upon  which  he  is  always  harp- 
ing; the  immutable  law  and  order  of  hereditary 
customs  and  obligations,  that  leave  no  scope  for 
individual  liberty,  that  grant  no  pardon  for  per- 
sonal eccentricity,  that  make  men  and  women  so 
many  helpless,  docile,  self-complacent  cogs  in  the 
big  machine  of  modern  life. 

Obviously,  Mr.  Galsworthy's  interest  in  life  is 
general  rather  than  special ;  he  is  interested  in 
humanity,  rather  than  in  the  individual  man  or 
woman.  In  an  essay  already  quoted  in  the  chap- 
ter on  Joseph  Conrad,  he  bestowed  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  high  praise  on  the  author  of  Lord 
Jim  on  the  ground  that  "  The  Universe  is  always 
saying:  The  little  part  called  man  is  always 
smaller  than  the  whole,"  and  that  in  Conrad's 
novels  "  nature  is  first,  man  is  second."  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy does  not  himself  place  nature  ahead  of 
man — nor  as  a  matter  of  fact  does  Mr.  Conrad — 
but  he  does  put  ethics  and  sociology,  manners  and 
customs,  mankind  in  the  aggregate,  overwhelm- 
ingly ahead  of  the  individual — and  this,  too,  not- 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  205 

withstanding  his  almost  inimitable  gift  of  graphic 
individualization.  For  these  reasons  he  misses 
almost  as  much  as  he  gains.  He  seems  to  see  little 
beauty  in  the  placid,  tranquil  lives  of  gentle  old 
ladies,  absorbed  in  the  daily  happenings  of  their 
intimate  home  circle,  knowing  and  caring  for 
nothing  beyond  these  limits,  and  realizing  least  of 
all  the  narrowness  of  their  lives.  In  a  world 
where  the  opportunities  for  activity  are  so  many 
and  so  big,  what  right,  he  seems  to  say,  has  any 
human  being  to  be  insular  and  narrow  and  self- 
satisfied? 

It  is  too  early  to  say  with  assurance  whither 
Mr.  Galsworthy  is  tending.  His  latest  novel, 
The  Patrician,  lacks  to  some  extent  the  vital  grip 
of  his  earlier  work.  My  own  personal  experience 
writh  it  was  that,  having  occasion  to  read  it  for  a 
second  time,  after  an  interval  of  a  few  months,  I 
found  that  the  impression  left  by  the  earlier  read- 
ing had  faded  out  almost  as  completely  as  the 
image  of  an  unfixed  photograph.  The  Athenceum, 
in  its  review  of  The  Patrician,  said  one  rather  un- 
kind thing;  it  said  that  this  was  a  book  which 
might  have  been  written  by  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward.  And  unfortunately  the  Athenceum  told 
the  simple,  undeniable  truth.  It  does  seem  rather 
a  handicap  for  an  apostle  of  the  new  school  of  fic- 
tion to  have  his  latest  work  already  identified  with 
the  materials  and  methods  of  the  Victorian  era. 


ARNOLD  BENNETT 

In  spite  of  the  mild  scorn  of  Mr.  William  Dean 
Howells  for  that  benighted  portion  of  the  reading 
public  whose  first  initiation  to  the  writings  of  Mr. 
Arnold  Bennett  came  with  the  publication  of 
The  Old  Wives'1  Tale  in  this  country,  the  fact  re- 
mains that  this  particular  bit  of  ignorance  was 
by  no  means  confined  to  the  unenlightened,  and 
that  a  good  many  critics  of  long  standing  made 
the  mistake  of  assuming  that  Mr.  Bennett  was  a 
newcomer  in  fiction  and  the  novel  in  question  a 
marvel  of  precocious  genius.  Such  a  mistake  was 
not  at  all  remarkable  because,  unlike  a  majority 
of  the  novelists  of  his  generation  who  have  since 
come  into  prominence,  Mr.  Bennett  failed  to  pro- 
duce any  early  volume  that  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  American  publishers.  If  one  takes  the 
trouble  to  look  over  the  catalogue  of  that  admi- 
rable and  unfortunately  defunct  collection  of  fic- 
tion known  as  the  Town  and  Country  Library,  it  is 
surprising  to  see  how  many  of  the  younger  repu- 
tations in  English  fiction  are  represented  there 
by  volumes  which  to-day  it  would  be  difficult  to 
procure  in  any  other  form — Mr.  J.  C.  Snaith,  for 

206 


Copyright.  Pi r it-  MacDonald,  N.  V 

ARNOLD   BENNETT 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  207 

instance,  and  Mr.  Leonard  Merrick.  But  Mr.  Ben- 
nett was  not  of  this  number;  and  since  he  is  one 
of  those  writers  whose  idiosyncrasies  are  largely  to 
be  explained  by  certain  facts  in  their  personal  his- 
tories it  seems  well,  before  proceeding  to  an  esti- 
mation of  his  work,  to  recapitulate  as  briefly  as 
possible  a  few  salient  details  of  his  life.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Bennett  is  a  man  of  forty 
years  and  upwards,  with  half  of  that  period  de- 
voted to  the  pursuit  of  literature,  and  upward  of  a 
score  of  published  volumes  of  fiction  to  his  account. 
He  was  born  in  1867,  in  the  Pottery  District  of 
North  Staffordshire,  England,  the  district  that 
he  has  painted  in  more  than  one  of  his  volumes 
under  the  caption  of  "  The  Five  Towns" — the 
smoke  and  gloom  and  narrow-minded  conserva- 
tism of  which  seem  to  have  followed  him  to  his 
new  home  across  the  Channel,  with  the  same  haunt- 
ing depression  with  which  it  follows  his  readers. 
He  was  educated  at  Newcastle,  and  for  a  time  took 
up  the  study  of  law;  but  later  abandoned  it  for 
journalism,  accepting  in  1895  a  position  on  a  Lon- 
don publication  called  Woman,  first  as  assistant 
editor,  and  three  years  later  as  editor-in-chief. 
In  the  midst  of  these  duties  he  found  time  to  pub- 
lish two  volumes,  A  Man  from  the  North  (1898) 
and  Polite  Farces  (1899).  In  a  little  volume 
which  is  largely  autobiographical  and  which  he 
has  entitled  The  Truth  About  an  Author,  Mr. 


208  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

Bennett  has  given  us  a  rather  graphic  picture  of 
these  early  years  in  London.  He  began  his  career 
as  a  free-lance  in  Fleet  Street,  with  the  belief  that 
he  had  entered  upon  a  glorious  calling.  He  soon 
learned  the  grim  reality.  The  free-lance  he  de- 
scribes as 

a  tramp  touting  for  odd  jobs;  a  peddler  crying  stuff 
which  is  bought  usually  in  default  of  better;  a  pro- 
ducer endeavoring  to  supply  a  market  of  whose  con- 
ditions he  is  in  ignorance  more  or  less  complete;  a 
commercial  traveler  liable  constantly  to  the  insolence 
of  an  elegant  West  End  draper  "  buyer." 

In  substance,  the  Bohemia  of  Mr.  Bennett's  ex- 
perience is  essentially  the  same  Bohemia  which 
George  Gissing  drew  some  years  earlier  in  his 
New  Grub  Street,  and  not  essentially  different 
from  the  Bohemia  depicted  so  vividly  in  Miss  Sin- 
clair's The  Divine  Fire.  In  Mr.  Bennett's  case, 
however,  free-lancing  in  time  led  to  better  things, 
and  he  has  recorded  with  evident  satisfaction  the 
keen  joy  of  the  day  when  at  last  he  sat  down  to 
write  his  first  novel,  under  what  he  called  "  the 
sweet  influences  of  the  de  Goncourts,  Turgenev, 
Flaubert  and  de  Maupassant."  The  purpose  up- 
permost in  Mr.  Bennett's  mind,  so  he  tells  us,  was 
to  imitate  the  physical  characteristics  of  the 
French  novel.  There  were  to  be  no  poetical  quo- 
tations, no  titles  to  the  chapters;  the  narrative 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  209 

was  to  be  divided  irregularly  by  Roman  numerals 
only.  In  short,  the  book  was  to  be  a  mosaic  of 
imitations  of  Flaubert  and  the  de  Goncourt 
brothers.  Life  being  gray,  sinister  and  melan- 
choly, his  first  book  should  similarly  be  melan- 
choly, sinister  and  gray.  And,  to  cap  this  confes- 
sion neatly,  Mr.  Bennett  adds  the  fact  that  at 
this  time  he  was  twenty-seven,  and  the  comment 
that  "  at  that  age  one  is  captious,  and  liable  to 
err  in  judgment." 

This  first  book  brought  Mr.  Bennett  some 
little  reputation,  a  few  favorable  reviews — and  a 
number  that  were  not  so  favorable,  together  with 
a  rather  disheartening  result  in  royalties.  For 
the  mere  sake  of  recording  what  the  weightier  sort 
of  contemporary  criticism  thought  of  A  Man  from 
the  North,  it  seems  worth  while  to  note  that  the 
Academy  pronounced  it  "the  kind  of  worthlessly 
clever  book  which  neither  touches  nor  moves  the 
reader,"  and  that  the  Athenaeum  defined  its  pre- 
vailing spirit  as  "not  the  poetry  of  the  common- 
place, not  the  romance  of  the  commonplace,  but  the 
veriest  commonplace  of  the  commonplace."  It 
was  not  strange,  under  the  circumstances,  that 
this  first  novel  brought  a  certain  amount  of  dis- 
illusionment, and  that  Mr.  Bennett  temporarily 
laid  aside  his  theory  of  art  for  art's  sake,  and  de- 
termined to  write  a  serial  of  the  kind  that  yields  a 
revenue.     He   had   had   sufficient   editorial   expe- 


210  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

rience  to  know  the  qualities  that  a  serial  of  this 
sort  must  possess.  His  theme,  to  borrow  his  own 
words,  was  not  original,  but  "  a  brilliant  imposture 
of  originality."  The  tale  was  divided  into  twelve 
installments  of  five  thousand  words  each,  and  he 
composed  it  in  twenty-four  half  days.  Every 
morning  walking  down  the  Thames  Embankment 
he  contrived  a  chapter  of  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred words,  and  every  afternoon  he  wrote  the 
chapter.  The  result  of  this  labor  was  sold  to  a 
syndicate  for  the  sum  of  seventy-five  pounds,  and 
the  author  saw  the  gates  of  fortune  opening. 
There  were  still  some  remains  of  an  artistic  con- 
science which  prompted  Bennett  to  sign  his  serial 
with  a  pseudonym.  Several  aliases  invented-  by 
himself  proving  unsatisfactory,  a  friend  offered 
him  that  of  "  Sampson  Death."  But  the  syndi- 
cate met  this  suggestion  by  saying  that  such  a 
name  would  have  the  effect  of  depressing  readers. 
"  Why  not  sign  your  own  name?  "  "  And,"  writes 
Mr.  Bennett,  "  I  signed  my  own  name.  I,  appren- 
tice of  Flaubert  et  Cie.,  stood  forth  to  the  universe 
as  a  sensation-monger." 

The  immediate  result  of  his  profitable  sensa- 
tion-mongering  was  that  it  enabled  him  to  resign 
from  the  editorship  of  Woman  and  devote  all  his 
time  to  the  manufacturing  of  books.  He  chose 
to  make  his  home  in  France ;  and  in  his  new  and 
more    congenial   surroundings    continued   to   turn 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  211 

forth  new  volumes  with  a  diligence  and  a  speed 
that  would  seem  incompatible  with  careful  work- 
manship if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  his  various 
volumes  are  each  in  its  own  class  of  fairly  uniform 
quality.  As  to  the  ethics  of  debasing  a  talent 
of  high  order  to  pander  to  the  popular  demand  of 
tawdry  sensationalism,  a  good  deal  has  already 
been  said,  and  a  good  deal  yet  remains  to  say. 
Over  and  over  again  comments  have  been  made, 
with  all  the  varying  degrees  of  irony,  upon  Mr. 
Bennett's  versatility  in  appearing  before  the  pub- 
lic "  in  a  dual  capacity  as  a  writer  of  lucrative 
trash  and  as  an  artist";  but  perhaps  the  matter 
has  never  been  more  effectively  worded  than  by 
Mr.  Howells  when  he  wrote: 

Apparently  Mr.  Bennett  has  found  a  comfort  or 
a  relaxation  or  an  indemnification  in  writing  a  bad 
book  after  he  has  written  a  good  one.  It  is  very 
curious;  it  cannot  be  from  a  wavering  ideal;  for  no 
man  could  have  seen  the  truth  about  life  so  clearly 
as  Mr.  Bennett,  with  any  after  doubts  of  its  unique 
value:  and  yet  we  have  him  from  time  to  time  indulg- 
ing himself  in  the  pleasure  of  painting  it  falsely. 

In  other  words,  gloss  it  over  as  we  may,  the 
ugly  fact  remains  that  Mr.  Bennett  has  for  more 
than  a  decade  deliberately  prostitued  a  talent  that 
approaches  close  to  the  border-line  of  genius  for 
the  sake  of  cold  pounds,  shillings  and  pence.     And 


212  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

he  has  not  the  saving  grace  of  a  sense  of  shame. 
His   critics,  with  many  a  sigh  and  shake  of  the 
head,  have  reluctantly  admitted  that  his  "  market- 
able trash  "  has  in  no  way  injured  in  quality,  al- 
though it   may  have  diminished  in  quantity,  the 
volumes    in    which    he    takes    himself    seriously. 
Their  attitude  is  amusingly  like  that  of  a  phy- 
sician who  is  forced  to  concede  that  an  over-in- 
dulgence in  alcohol  or  opium  has  not  impaired  the 
mental  brilliance  of  a  patient.     But  in  Mr.  Ar- 
nold Bennett's  case,  I  take  the  liberty  of  thinking 
that  the  critics  are  wrong.     I  am  a  firm  believer 
in  the  doctrine  that  no  man  can  serve  two  masters, 
least  of  all  where  it  is  a  case  of  simultaneously 
worshiping  at  the  altar  of  the  Divine  Fire  and 
the  altar  of  Mammon.     Mr.  Bennett,  in  his  dual 
capacity,  always  suggests  to  me  the  two  familiar 
classical  masks  of  Tragedy  and  Comedy,  neither 
of  them  seeing  life  as  a  whole,  but  each  viewing  the 
outside  world  with  its  own  characteristic  grimace. 
Now,  it  is  a  notorious  commonplace  that  the  man 
who  spends  the  better  part  of  his  life  as  a  paid 
buffoon,  the  court  jester,  the  harlequin,  the  circus 
clown,  sees  life  through  the  eyes  of  a  confirmed 
misanthrope ;  the  merrier  the  jest  that  he  cracks  in 
public,  the  more  impossible  it  becomes  in  private  to 
stir  the  lips  into  the  wraith  of  a  smile.     And  that 
is  precisely  what  I  think  is  the  trouble  with  the 
whole  series  of  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett's  stories  of  the 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  213 

Five  Towns.     It  is  not  that  they  are  untrue;  it 
is  simply  that  the  joy  of  living  has  been  sucked  out 
of  them,  as  moisture  is  sucked  up  by  a  sheet  of 
blotting  paper.     Mr.  Bennett  has  told  us  minutely 
of  his  methods  of  work ;  so  many  hours  a  day  on 
his  "  Modern  Fantasias,"  so  many  hours  on  his 
serious    books,    the    books    which    presumably    he 
still  writes  under  the  "  sweet  influences  "  of  his 
chosen   French   and   Russian   models.     But   he   is 
trying  to   do  something  of  which  human  nerves 
and  brain  tissues  are  incapable.     The  world  is  re- 
vealed to  us  in  a  certain  number  of  primal  colors. 
And  we  all  know  that  if  we  tire  our  eyes  by  look- 
ing too  steadily,  for  a  time,  at  any  one  of  these 
colors,    red,   for   instance,    it    grows    dull   to    our 
perception — and    if   we    turn    our   gaze    to    some 
other   object   in  which  the   complementary  color, 
green,  predominates,  what  little  red  may  be  pres- 
ent is  scarcely  perceived,  while  the  green  flaunts 
itself  in   our   face  with  an  unprecedented  efful- 
gence.    That  is  precisely  what  happens  to  Mr. 
Bennett ;  he  exhausts  his  power  of  perceiving  the 
reds  and  yellows,  the  joyous  notes  of  life,  in  his 
purely  negligible  productions,  and  the  consequence 
is  that  his  mental  faculties  are  too  strained  and 
too  weary  to  perceive,  in  Anna  of  the  Five  Towns, 
in  The  Old  Wives'  Tale,  in  Clayh  anger,  any  glint 
of  those  brighter,  warmer  colors  without  which, 
we  all  know,  life  would  be  too  monochrome,  too 


214  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

hopelessly  gray  for  human  endurance,  even  to 
those  inured  to  the  smoke-laden  atmosphere  of 
the  Five  Towns. 

None  the  less,  it  is  the  inalienable  right  of  every 
artist  to  choose  his  own  pigments.  A  painter  may 
limit  himself  to  cold  black  and  whitevin  painting  a 
sunset ;  provided,  of  course,  that  he  does  not  claim 
that  a  sunset  in  nature  has  no  other  tones.  Air. 
Bennett  is  an  unrivaled  expert  in  mixing  leaden 
tints;  his  palette  runs  through  the  whole  gamut 
of  drabs,  and  grays,  and  slates,  tan,  and  dun,  and 
sepia.  He  makes  us  behold  life,  raw,  anguished, 
hopeless  life,  through  glasses,  smoked  not  so 
deeply  as  to  dull  any  of  the  poignancy,  but  suffi- 
ciently to  rob  us  of  the  symbolic  blue  of  hope.  He 
is  within  his  rights.  He  tells  the  truth  about  life 
— only,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  does  not 
tell  the  whole  truth. 

It  is  difficult  to  master  patience  to  speak  even 
perfunctorily  of  Mr.  Bennett's  purely  commercial 
productions,  the  series  which  he  reels  forth  with 
such  amazing  fertility  and  which  some  remnant 
of  artistic  conscience  compels  him  to  label  "Fan- 
tasias." They  are  all  built  on  much  the  same 
formula;  there  is  a  taint  of  megalomania  in  their 
conception  and  development,  a  hugeness  of  set- 
ting and  environment,  an  unparalleled  and  inex- 
haustible opulence  of  color  and  light,  of  ostenta- 
tion and  gaiety,  of  thronging  men  and  women, 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  215 

and  the  glitter  of  jewels  and  the  sheen  of  priceless 
fabrics.  The  Grand  Babylon  Hotel,  for  instance, 
which  was  the  forerunner  of  the  series,  introduces 
us  to  a  vast  fashionable  caravansery  in  the  West 
End ;  an  American  multi-millionaire,  one  Theodore 
Racksole  by  name,  and  his  fascinating  and  self- 
willed  daughter,  Nella,  happen  to  be  dining  there ; 
and  the  young  woman,  out  of  sheer  perversity,  de- 
sires, in  preference  to  anything  which  the  elabo- 
rate menu  offers,  a  simple  beefsteak  and  a  glass  of 
beer.  When  it  develops  that  this  homely  fare  is 
not  to  be  had,  Mr.  Theodore  Racksole  absents 
himself  from  the  dining-room  for  a  few  brief 
minutes  and  returns  as  proprietor  of  the  hotel, 
having  purchased  it  for  a  number  of  pounds  which 
probably  looks  quite  imposing  to  the  class  of  Eng- 
lish readers  who  like  this  sort  of  trash.  Now  it 
happens  that  the  Grand  Babylon  Hotel  is  a  hot- 
bed of  intrigue ;  that  Jules,  the  imperturbable 
waiter,  Rocco,  the  incomparable  chef,  and  Felix 
Babylon,  late  proprietor  of  the  hotel,  one  and  all 
have  their  parts  to  play  in  an  international  in- 
trigue involving  the  fate  of  the  King  of  Bosnia. 
And  in  sheer  justice  to  Mr.  Bennett,  it  must  be 
conceded  that,  if  he  cannot  quite  compete,  on 
their  own  ground,  with  writers  of  the  class  of 
Max  Pemberton  and  Phillips  Oppenheim,  he  gives 
them,  in  racing  parlance,  a  pretty  good  run  for 
their  money. 


216  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

Of  the  same  general  character  are  Teresa  of 
Watling  Street,  in  which  motor  cars  figure  promi- 
nently and  which  one  outspoken  reviewer  tersely 
dismissed  as  the  work  of  "  a  literary  trickster,  a 
juggler  in  fiction  ";  The  Loot  of  Cities,  in  which 
the  underlying  idea  seems  to  be  an  appreciation  of 
the  delicious  absurdity  of  imagining  a  young  and 
genial  plutocrat  who,  in  search  of  diversion,  hits 
upon  the  expedient  of  planning  a  series  of  colos- 
sal robberies,  designed  to  cripple  rival  plutocrats 
in  a  wholesale  fashion ;  Hugo,  in  which  a  story  of 
involved  and  startling  intrigue  takes  place  in  a  gi- 
gantic shop  situated  in  Sloane  Street — the  sort 
of  establishment  that  closely  approaches  the 
American  conception  of  a  department  store,  save 
that  it  outdoes  it  by  being  constructed  on  palatial 
lines,  surmounted  by  four  or  five  stories  of  the 
most  expensive  residential  apartments  in  London, 
and  further  equipped  with  roof-gardens,  high- 
class  restaurants,  and  endless  other  forms  of  phys- 
ical and  mental  entertainment;  and  The  City  of 
Pleasure,  a  sort  of  metropolitan  Luna  Park,  con- 
ceived, in  the  same  spirit  of  extravagance,  as  a 
colossal  popular  pleasure  ground  yielding  its  pro- 
prietors an  income  of  ten  thousand  pounds  a 
week.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Bennett's  formula  for 
this  class  of  work  is,  in  terms  of  bookkeeping,  the 
formula  of  Brewster's  Millions — only  that  it  lacks 
the  cleverness  of  Mr.  McCutcheon's  central  idea. 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  217 

Between  his  riotous  melodramatic  "  Fantasias  " 
and  the  Five  Towns  Series,  on  which  his  repu- 
tation is  solidly  built,  Mr.  Bennett  has  produced  a 
miscellaneous  lot  of  volumes  ranging  from  serious 
to  farcical  and  difficult  to  classify  otherwise  than 
by  the  unsatisfactory  generalization  that  they  are 
not  cheap  enough  to  be  profitable  merchandise  nor 
fine  enough  to  be  literature.  As  specimens  of  this 
intermediate  class,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  comment 
briefly  on  three  volumes  which  happen  to  have  been 
reprinted  in  America,  Buried  Alive,  Denry  the  Au- 
dacious and  The  Glimpse.  The  first  of  these 
three  is  a  book  towards  which  it  is  not  difficult  to 
be  indulgent,  for  it  not  only  represents  an  honest 
effort  to  be  humorous,  with  the  further  merit  of 
succeeding,  but  it  has  an  undercurrent  of  satire 
regarding  the  vanity  of  pompous  obsequies,  the 
elusiveness  of  fame.  More  specifically,  Buried 
Alive  is  simply  the  chronicle  of  a  very  shy  man, 
who  for  years  has  depended  upon  the  services  of 
his  valet  to  save  him  from  contact  with  the  world, 
and  when  that  valet  suddenly  dies  the  master  in  his 
first  hour  of  bewilderment  seizes  eagerly  upon  the 
blunder  of  a  strange  doctor,  who  confuses  master 
and  man,  and  allows  himself  to  be  declared  dead. 
Now  the  master  happens  to  be  a  famous  painter, 
how  famous  even  he  has  never  guessed  until  he  is 
pronounced  dead — and  he  has  the  dubious  pleasure 
of  reading  long  obituaries  about  himself,  of  fol- 


218  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

lowing  the  stormy  discussion  that  ensues  as  to 
the  proper  manner  of  paying  him  honor,  and 
finally  of  attending  his  own  funeral,  when  the 
ashes  of  his  valet  are  laid  to  rest  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  Such  is  the  opening  of  an  extravaganza 
which  is  never  tedious,  never  vulgar,  but  from 
beginning  to  end  permeated  with  that  brand  of 
British  humor  already  made  familiar  to  us  through 
the  Gilbert-and-Sullivan  librettos. 

Denry  the  Audacious  is  another  name  for  a  vol- 
ume which  appeared  in  England  as  The  Card;  and 
it  is  a  question  which  of  the  two  titles  is  more  in 
need  of  explanation.  A  "  card  "  is  a  person  who 
lives  by  his  wits,  who  can  turn  his  hand  to  all 
sort  of  odd  makeshifts,  honorable  or  otherwise, 
and  justify  them  by  making  them  successes.  In 
this  sense,  Denry  certainly  earns  his  right  to  the 
appellation.  The  hero's  extraordinary  name,  by 
the  way,  which  serves  as  the  American  title  and 
looks  as  though  it  were  the  result  of  careless  proof- 
reading, is  briefly  explained  at  the  outset  by  the 
simple  fact  that  Denry's  mother,  "  a  somewhat 
gloomy  woman,  thin,  with  a  tongue !  "  found  that 
she  could  save  a  certain  amount  of  time  every  day 
by  addressing  him  as  Denry  instead  of  Edward 
Henry.  Of  plot  this  volume  is  very  nearly  guilt- 
less. In  so  far  as  it  has  any,  it  belongs  to  the 
picaresco  type.  Denry's  adventures  are  practi- 
cally all  of  one  kind  and  they  might  have  been  ex- 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  219 

paneled  and  multiplied  to  fill  a  dozen  volumes  or 
curtailed  to  the  dimensions  of  a  short  story.  His 
audacity  amounts  to  this :  whenever  he  finds  him- 
self in  a  position  menacing  him  with  failure,  social 
or  financial,  instead  of  losing  courage,  temporising, 
beating  a  retreat  as  sober  common  sense  would 
dictate,  he  drives  boldly,  even  brazenly  ahead  and 
wrenches  a  colossal  triumph  from  the  very  jaws 
of  disaster.  A  quite  simple  formula,  you  see,  and 
one  permitting  of  infinite  variations.  Add  to  this 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Bennett  has  a  genuine  sense  of 
humor  and  the  ability  to  make  the  most  out  of  a 
paradoxical  situation  and  you  have  the  whole  ex- 
planation why  a  book  like  this,  which  would  have 
been  a  flat  failure  at  the  hands  of  ninety-nine 
writers  out  of  a  hundred,  proves  in  this  case  to  be 
very  good  fun  indeed. 

The  Glimpse,  the  third  volume  singled  out  for 
separate  comment,  is  evidently  meant  by  Mr.  Ben- 
nett as  a  serious  piece  of  work ;  and  while  it  is  not 
to  be  put  for  a  moment  in  the  same  class  with 
Claylianger  or  The  Old  Wives'  Tale,  it  is  none  the 
less  a  work  of  distinct  originalit}7.  Whether  it 
was  really  worth  doing  is  quite  another  question. 
There  is  nothing  striking  about  the  opening  chap- 
ters ;  simply  the  usual  commonplace  situation  of 
an  unhappy  marriage :  a  man  and  a  woman,  hope- 
lessly incompatible,  drifting  steadily  apart,  he 
finding  solace  in  intellectual  pursuits,  she  driven, 


220  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

through  sheer  restlessness,  into  more  and  more 
venturesome  companionship.  Then  comes  a  day 
when,  through  a  series  of  blunders  that  lead  her 
to  believe  that  her  husband  has  learned  the  truth, 
she  confesses  her  love  for  another  man.  The  hus- 
band's sudden  anger,  stoically  controlled,  throws 
too  great  a  strain  upon  his  nervous  system,  brings 
on  serious  heart  trouble,  and  is  followed  by  cata- 
lepsy, and  apparently  death.  Here  begins  the 
second  part  of  the  story,  highly  imaginative, 
strange  to  the  point  of  uncanniness — the  expe- 
riences of  a  liberated  soul  in  its  first  glimpse  of  life 
beyond  the  grave.  As  a  sheer  bit  of  speculation,  a 
brilliant  juggling  with  words,  the  episode  refuses 
to  be  forgotten.  But  sober  second  thought  makes 
it  clear  that  all  such  speculation  is  quite  futile. 
The  end  of  the  story  comes  with  a  grim  swiftness. 
The  man,  as  it  happens,  is  not  dead,  merely  in  a 
trance,  and  after  a  few  hours  he  struggles  back, 
but  the  irrevocable  has  already  happened.  The 
foolish,  wayward  wife,  who  through  all  her  folly 
has  secretly  loved  her  husband  and  no  one  else,  is 
overwhelmed  with  remorse,  when  she  feels  that  it  is 
her  confession  that  has  killed  him.  And  when  he 
opens  his  eyes  on  the  world  again,  she  has  already 
swallowed  oxalic  acid  and  is  beyond  medical  aid. 
Now,  this  is  undeniably  an  unusual  story,  and 
an  uncomfortable  one  as  well;  but  no  one  would 
ever  infer  from  it  that  the  author  had  the  power 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  221 

to  produce  works  of  such  real  importance  as  Anna 
of  the  Five  Totems,  Leonora,  and  the  several  sub- 
sequent volumes  that  have  for  their  setting  a 
string  of  ugly,  busy  manufacturing  centers  in  the 
pottery  district  of  Staffordshire.  In  Anna  of  the 
Five  Towns  Mr.  Bennett  for  the  first  time  set  his 
feet  firmly  on  his  rightful  path.  It  has  the  same 
pervading  grayness,  physically  and  morally,  the 
same  overhanging  veil  of  grimy  smoke,  the  same 
dull  helplessness  of  lookout  that  characterize  what 
has  come  to  be  known  as  his  distinctive  work — 
much  as  a  certain  kind  of  glaze,  a  certain  charac- 
teristic color  come  to  be  the  hall-mark  of  a  par- 
ticular sort  of  pottery.  Anna  is  the  daughter  of 
a  miser,  a  Wesleyan  Methodist,  who  has  made  a 
fortune  as  a  potter's  valuer  and  has  retired,  in 
middle  age,  both  from  his  business  connection  with 
the  potteries  and  from  his  former  activity  as  a 
pillar  of  the  Church.  He  is  a  widower  and  his 
eldest  daughter  Anna  keeps  house  for  him  on  one 
pound  sterling  a  week,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
miser  is  worth  over  sixty  thousand  pounds,  and 
Anna  has  almost  as  much  in  her  own  right,  inher- 
ited from  her  mother.  Imagine  a  dingy  little 
house  buried  alive  in  a  dingy  little  row,  a  house  to 
which  no  visitor  is  ever  allowed  ingress,  and  two 
forlorn  girls,  lonely,  half  fed,  miserably  tyran- 
nized over  by  a  consistently  brutal  and  morose  old 
man.     It  is  not  strange  that  when  Henry  Mynor, 


222  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

one  of  the  few  successful  and  eligible  young  men 
of  the  neighborhood,  proposes  to  Anna,  she  should 
at  once  accept  him  in  a  maze  of  bewildered  grati- 
tude. And  having  given  her  word,  Anna  is  of  that 
dutiful  and  conscientious  type  that  will  allow  noth- 
ing to  prevent  her  from  keeping  it.  But  sense 
of  duty  does  not  save  Anna  from  learning  from 
another  man  what  love  really  means,  and  in  con- 
sequence the  grayness  of  life,  which  promised  for  a 
time  to  lift,  settles  down  upon  her  more  hopelessly 
and  irrevocably  than  ever. 

Leonora  is  another  similar  story  of  the  same 
sordid  life,  constructed  with  the  same  solid 
and  ambitious  craftsmanship.  The  heroine  has 
reached  the  threshold  of  forty  years.  "  She  was 
not  too  soon  shocked  nor  too  severe  in  her  ver- 
dicts, nor  the  victim  of  too  many  illusions."  She 
is  the  wife  of  an  elderly  manufacturer  and  the 
mother  of  three  grown  daughters;  yet  neither 
her  years  nor  her  responsibilities  save  her  from 
dreams  of  romance  and  illicit  love.  There  is  a 
prosperous  American  whom  chance  brings  to 
break  the  dull  monotony  of  the  Five  Towns,  and  it 
is  only  the  fortunate  occurrence  of  the  death  of 
Leonora's  husband  that  saves  her  from  any  worse 
indiscretion  than  a  second  marriage. 

But  it  is  with  The  Old  Wives'  Tale  that  Mr. 
Bennett  achieves  for  the  first  time  a  work  that  be- 
yond all  dispute  or  cavil  is  of  the  first  magnitude. 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  223 

This  is  the  book  of  which  Dr.  Robertson  Nicoll  ex- 
pressed himself,  on  its  first  appearance,  in  these 
enthusiastic  terms :  "  The  story  is  a  masterpiece, 
and  it  lacks  only  a  touch  of  poetry  to  put  it  in 
the  very  front  rank."  And  frankly  it  is  a  book 
which  deserves  all  that  Dr.  Nicoll  said  in  its  favor 
and  something  more  besides.  It  is  only  at  long 
intervals  that  a  piece  of  fiction  appears  which 
conveys  an  impression  of  such  magnitude,  such 
finished  workmanship  and  such  a  fund  of  reserve 
power.  There  are  many  books  which  impress  one 
with  a  sense  of  amplitude,  a  sense  of  being  spread 
over  a  very  broad  canvas.  It  is  much  rarer  to 
find,  as  in  the  present  case,  a  book  which  gives  a 
sense  of  depth  as  well  as  breadth,  a  book  that  has 
a  wonderful,  far-reaching  perspective,  making  you 
feel  that  you  are  looking  not  merely  upon  the  sur- 
face of  life,  but  through  and  beyond  the  surface 
into  the  deep  and  hidden  meanings  of  human  ex- 
istence. As  in  the  case  of  all  novels  which  really 
deserve  the  attribute  of  bigness,  The  Old  Wives' 
Tale  achieves  its  effects  without  the  aid  of  a  spec- 
tacular background  or  of  exceptional  and  exalted 
characters.  Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to  im- 
agine anything  more  essentially  mediocre  and  com- 
monplace, more  uniformly  dull  and  gray  than  the 
whole  external  atmosphere  of  this  strong  and 
poignant  story.  A  small  manufacturing  town  of 
middle  England,  with  scant  sunlight  struggling 


224  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

vainly  to  pierce  the  veil  of  soft-coal  smoke  which 
perpetually  overhangs  it ;  a  central  square  with  its 
five  public  houses,  its  bank,  its  two  chemists,  its 
five  drapers ;  and  on  the  floor  above  the  most  im- 
posing of  these  drapers'  shops  living  apartments 
occupied  by  the  family  of  this  particular  shop- 
keeper. Narrow,  hopelessly  conservative,  un- 
speakably bourgeois  in  their  attitude  toward  life, 
the  Baines  family,  nevertheless,  stand  out  in  this 
story  as  fair  average  representatives  of  the  human 
race,  sufficient  exponents  of  the  three  great  mys- 
teries of  life:  birth,  marriage  and  death.  There 
are,  of  course,  exceptional  people  in  the  world,  peo- 
ple who  achieve  great  things,  and  whose  names 
are  enrolled  permanently  on  the  honor  roll  of 
fate.  But  to  the  great  majority  the  sum  and 
substance  of  life  is,  roughly  speaking,  somewhat 
after  this  fashion :  there  is  a  brief  period  of  youth- 
ful illusion,  when  one  forms  brave  plans  for  great 
achievements,  and  the  years  which  really  count 
all  lie  ahead  in  a  glamour  of  rosy  hope ;  and  then, 
almost  before  one  knows  how  it  has  come  about, 
one  is  old,  and  the  years  that  count  all  lie  behind 
and  the  sum  total  of  accomplishments,  as  one  looks 
back,  seems  insignificant,  and  one  is  glad  to  cher- 
ish the  memories  of  brief,  fugitive  happiness 
snatched  here  and  there  by  the  way.  This  is  not 
an  unfair  picture  of  the  average  life  of  the  great 
struggling  middle  class  in  an  overpopulated  coun- 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  225 

try  of  the  Old  World.  And  this  is  precisely  what 
Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  has  succeeded  in  giving  us  in 
his  Old  Wives'  Talc  of  the  lives  of  Constance  and 
Sophia  Baines,  the  two  daughters  of  the  bedridden 
old  draper,  through  fifty  years  of  hopes  and  hard- 
ships and  disillusion.  It  would  serve  no  useful  pur- 
pose to  analyze  the  plot  of  this  volume,  for  the  pat- 
tern is  too  intricate  to  be  briefly  summed  up — it 
has  the  multifold  and  wonderful  intricacy  of  actual 
life.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  there  are  very  few 
books  in  English  which  mirror  back  so  truly  and 
with  such  a  fine  sense  of  proportion  the  rela- 
tive amounts  of  joy  and  sorrow  that  enter  into 
the  average  human  life — the  unconscious  selfish- 
ness of  youth,  the  rash  haste  to  reach  forward  and 
grasp  opportunities,  the  relentless  encroachment 
of  disease,  the  loneliness  of  old  age,  the  inevi- 
tability of  death.  Naturally  the  book  is,  with 
all  its  merits,  a  depressing  one.  It  leaves  be- 
hind it  a  sense  of  grayness  and  loneliness  and  per- 
sonal loss,  and  all  the  more  so  because  it  possesses 
that  rare  power  of  making  us  feel  the  brotherhood 
of  these  commonplace  people  that  fill  its  pages, 
and  so  rendering  their  successive  passing  away  a 
personal  and  intimate  sorrow  to  each  one  of  us. 
Undoubtedly,  a  Touch  of  Poetry,  that  is  to  say,  a 
strain  of  romanticism,  idealising  the  meaner  traits 
of  character,  the  harsher  blows  of  fate,  would 
lighten  the  gloom  and  relieve  the  tension,  but  in- 


226  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

evitably  it  would  have  shorn  the  book  of  its  chief 
strength,  the  incomparable  strength  of  literal  and 
fearless  truth.  It  stands  out  conspicuously  as 
the  one  volume  in  which  Mr.  Bennett  has  justified 
his  practice  of  painting  in  verbal  grisaille. 

When  Clayhanger  first  appeared,  it  was  an- 
nounced as  the  first  of  a  trilogy  of  novels  dealing 
with  the  Five  Towns,  the  central  theme  of  which 
was  to  be  the  breaking  down  of  the  old  spirit  by 
the  new  in  the  central  provinces  of  England.  The 
first  volume  of  this  trilogy  relates  the  history  of  a 
certain  Edward  Clayhanger,  a  master  printer  and 
son  of  a  master  printer  before  him,  from  the  time 
of  his  leaving  school  to  his  somewhat  belated  mar- 
riage at  the  age  of  thirty-five.  His  state  of  subjec- 
tion to  his  father,  and  the  latter's  justification  of 
his  tyranny  on  the  ground  that  eventually  the  son 
will  "  come  into  everything,"  are  only  one  part  of 
the  old  order  of  things  which  Mr.  Bennett  tries 
to  show  in  this  trilogy  to  be  slowly  breaking  up 
and  passing  away.  It  is  impossible  to  consider 
Clayhanger  in  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  trilogy 
until  we  have  both  of  the  remaining  volumes  before 
us ;  structurally,  if  taken  by  itself,  it  is  undeniably 
an  unwieldy,  disproportioned  piece  of  work,  as 
full  of  loose  ends  and  projecting  corners  as  a 
chance  fragment  from  a  puzzle  picture.  Just  how 
Mr.  Bennett  proposes  to  fit  in  all  these  irregulari- 
ties and  round  them  out  into  a  finished  symmetry 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  227 

by  the  completion  of  his  trilogy — whether,  indeed, 
he  can  accomplish  the  task  at  all,  or  whether  the 
finished  group  will  still  have  the  same  structural 
defect,  the  same  lack  of  proportion  as  the  first  of 
its  members,  it  would  be  unfair  to  judge  in  advance. 
Hilda  Less-ways,  instead  of  helping  the  situation, 
complicates  it.  Instead  of  sustaining  the  high 
standard  set  by  Clayhanger,  as  a  human  document, 
it  falls  emphatically  below  the  level  of  that  volume ; 
and  instead  of  beginning  the  task  of  rounding  out 
and  filling  in,  it  simply  adds  just  so  many  more 
loose  ends  and  projecting  corners.  In  fact,  to 
discuss  Hilda  Lessways,  at  the  present  moment, 
and  before  we  know  what  miracle  of  ingenuity  Mr. 
Bennett  may  achieve  with  his  concluding  volume, 
would  be  premature — as  premature  and  as  unfair 
as  it  would  be  to  analyze  Clayhanger  from  the 
viewpoint  of  construction.  You  cannot  discuss 
the  principles  of  proportion  in  relation  to  an  un- 
finished building  or  a  dismantled  ruin ;  you  cannot 
base  an  argument  about  the  harmonic  poise  of  the 
human  body  on  a  mutilated  masterpiece  like  the 
Milo  Venus.  But,  if  we  set  aside  completely  the 
question  of  construction,  and  consider  Clayhanger 
in  just  one  aspect — the  aspect  in  which,  one  sus- 
pects, the  author  himself  would  prefer  it  to  be  con- 
sidered— namely,  as  a  study  of  the  unfolding  and 
maturing  of  a  single  human  character,  it  would 
be  rather  difficult  to  overpraise  it.     But  it  is  neces- 


228  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

sary,  if  I  am  to  hope  to  find  readers  who  agree 
with  me,  that  I  should  add  one  proviso:  namely, 
that  they  read  Clayhanger  intelligently,  approach- 
ing it  in  a  spirit  of  seriousness,  as  a  deep  and 
careful  study  of  life  deserves  to  be  approached, 
and  not  as  one  seeking  an  afternoon's  entertain- 
ment. We  all  of  us  have  our  instinctive  upward 
gropings  in  early  childhood ;  we  all  have  dreams, 
more  or  less  definite,  of  the  great  things  we  pro- 
pose to  do  some  day  or  other,  with  our  lives ;  and 
we  all  find  that  sooner  or  later,  an  iron-handed  des- 
tiny— predestination,  if  you  like  religious  termi- 
nology ;  heredity  and  environment,  if  your  leaning 
is  towards  the  sciences — has  reached  out  to  say 
peremptorily,  "  so  far  you  may  go,  and  no  further ; 
you  wish  to  do  so-and-so,  but  instead  you  must  do 
something  quite  different."  Such  conditions  are 
quite  independent  of  the  place  in  the  world  to 
.  which  we  happen  to  be  born,  whether  socially  or 
geographically;  it  is  just  as  true  of  a  small,  mid- 
dle-class English  boy,  looking  out  upon  the 
smoke-grimed  horizon  of  the  pottery  district,  as 
it  would  be  of  some  luckier  brother  in  London  or 
New  York.  Almost  any  one  can  write  local  stories 
that  never  for  a  moment  get  beyond  the  confines  of 
the  native  village.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  just  a 
few  writers  of  Mr.  Bennett's  caliber  to  remain 
within  the  limits  of  their  native  village  and  yet 
at  the  same  time  to  make  their  theme  universal. 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  229 

One  can  imagine,  of  course,  some  unsympathetic, 
unenlightened  reader  flinging  aside  Clayhanger,  at 
the  end  of  the  first  fifty  pages,  with  the  random 
verdict,  "  Oh,  this  is  a  tiresome  story  about  a 
stupid  old  fogy  who  has  a  job-printing  estab- 
lishment in  a  stupid  old  town,  and  about  his  son, 
who  wants  to  be  an  architect  and  has  not  brains 
enough  or  courage  enough  to  go  his  own  way !  " 
and,  so  far  as  it  goes,  this  is  a  true  statement  of 
the  book's  substance.  Its  value  as  a  human  docu- 
ment lies,  first,  in  the  untiring  fidelity  with  which 
Mr.  Bennett  convinces  us  that  his  people  are  so 
constituted  that  they  must  inevitably  have  said 
and  done  precisely  what  he  records,  and  not  other- 
wise; and,  secondly,  making  due  allowance  for 
local  differences,  that  his  people  are  much  the 
same  as  people  everywhere  else,  with  the  same 
hopes  and  fears,  the  same  futile  efforts,  the  same 
disappointments. 

Clayhanger  is  a  formidable  task  to  undertake, 
if  you  do  not  chance  to  be  in  the  mood  for  it.  It 
lacks  only  two  pages  of  a  round  seven  hundred — 
and  it  does  not  even  lack  those,  if  you  count  the 
title-page  and  table  of  contents.  But  when  you 
have  once  gone  to  the  end  of  that  book,  if  you  are 
a  reader  of  real  discernment  and  broad  sympa- 
thies, you  will  have  added  one  or  two  names  to 
your  list  of  permanent  friends  in  fiction ;  you  will 
have  been  stimulated  to  the  point  of  a  few  new 


230  ARNOLD  BENNETT 

thoughts,  or  at  least  a  readjustment  of  several  old 
ones ;  and  besides  this,  you  will  have  been  filled 
with  amazement  of  a  cumulative  sort  at  certain 
unexpected  flashes  of  intuition  that  Mr.  Bennett  is 
all  the  time  exhibiting.  You  will  find  yourself 
asking  over  and  over  again,  when  you  are  con- 
fronted with  one  of  these  shrewd  little  observations 
of  life,  these  illuminating  explanations  of  the  why 
and  the  wherefore :  "  How  in  the  world  did  Arnold 
Bennett  come  to  know  these  things,  and,  knowing 
them,  succeed  in  expressing  them  in  this  inimitable 
way?  How  has  he  caught  so  marvelously  the 
vagueness  of  mixed  motives,  that  baffle  all  of  us, 
when  we  try  to  explain  our  own  actions  ?  "  For  it 
is  a  fact  that  Mr.  Bennett  quite  frequently  dissects 
and  analyzes  human  impulses  and  desires  with  the 
subtlety  of  a  Henry  James — and  yet  without  ob- 
scurity. No  writer  is  definitely  placed  during  his 
lifetime;  but  Mr.  Bennett  is,  up  to  the  present 
time,  peculiarly  and  exceptionally  misjudged  and 
alternately  overrated  and  underpraised.  He  cer- 
tainly does  not  deserve  one-half  the  censure  that 
you  will  find  in  the  average  estimate  of  his  earlier 
books ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  even 
greater  exaggeration  implied  in  the  recent  tribute 
by  Mr.  William  Dean  Howells,  when  he  says,  in 
effect,  that  since  Flaubert  and  the  de  Goncourts, 
Maupassant  and  Zola  have  passed  away,  since 
Tolstoy  is  no  more,  and  Perez  Galdos  and  Arman- 


ARNOLD  BENNETT  231 

do  Palacio  Valdes  are  silent,  Mr.  Bennett  is  the 
only  living  novelist  he  can  confidently  look  to  for 
pleasure.  If  my  own  enjoyment  were  so  curtailed, 
I  am  afraid  that  I  should  find  life  overhung  with 
the  same  leaden  pall  of  gloom  as  envelops  the 
Five  Towns  that  Mr.  Bennett  has  made  famous. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  could  name  offhand  at  least 
a  score  of  novelists  who  may  be  trusted  to  provide 
quite  as  much  pleasure  as  Mr.  Bennett,  to  be 
equally  true  to  the  realities  of  life,  and  to  be,  in 
some  respects,  better  craftsmen,  and  possessed  of 
a  higher  ideal  of  art,  a  greater  reluctance  to  pros- 
titute it  to  the  demands  of  expediency.  But  this 
does  not  alter  the  fact  that  Mr.  Bennett  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly interesting  product  of  the  modern  tend- 
encies in  English  fiction,  as  contrasted  with  the 
American  variety ;  and  one  shrewdly  suspects 
that  he  has  in  him  the  capability  of  doing  even 
bigger  things. 


ANTHONY  HOPE 

It  is  a  sufficiently  pleasant  task  to  undertake  to 
write  a  brief  appreciation  of  Mr.  Anthony  Hope. 
The  prevailing  urbanity  of  his  manner,  the  sus- 
tained sparkle  of  his  wit,  the  agreeable  expectation 
that  he  arouses  of  something  stimulating  about 
to  happen,  largely  disarm  criticism.  Besides,  he 
does  not  seem  to  demand  to  be  taken  too  seriously ; 
he  is  not  a  preacher  or  reformer,  he  is  not  trying  to 
revolutionize  the  world ;  he  is  too  well  pleased  with 
men  and  women  as  they  actually  are,  to  desire  to 
make  them  something  different.  In  short,  he  is 
a  suave  and  charming  public  entertainer,  and  like 
all  wise  entertainers  he  alters  the  character  of  his 
program  in  accordance  with  the  fluctuations  of 
public  taste.  And  being  both  versatile  and  far- 
sighted  he  is  usually  in  the  van  of  each  new  move- 
ment. The  God  in  the  Car,  his  story  of  gigantic 
land  speculations  in  South  Africa,  with  the  Her- 
culean figure  whom  he  chooses  to  disguise  under 
the  name  of  "  Juggernaut,"  appeared  in  1894,  thus 
antedating  by  five  years  The  Colossus,  by  Morley 
Roberts.  Phroso,  with  its  romantic  setting  among 
the  islands  of  modern  Greece,  anticipated  by  a  year 

232 


ANTHONY  HOPE 


ANTHONY  HOPE  233 

Mr.  E.  F.  Benson's  analogous  attempts,  The  Vin- 
tage and  The  Capsina.  When  the  revival  of  the 
English  historical  novel  was  at  its  height,  he  suc- 
ceeded once  more  in  coming  in  ahead  of  his  com- 
petitors, and  Simon  Dale,  which  appeared  in  1898 
and  is  a  study  of  Restoration  manners,  with  Nell 
Gwynn  for  its  central  interest,  led  the  way  for 
The  Orange  Girl  by  Sir  Walter  Besant,  issued  in 
1899,  and  F.  Frankfort  Moore's  Nell  Gwynn, 
Comedian,  which  was  not  published  until  1900. 

But  although  he  so  cleverly  adapts  himself  to 
the  trend  of  public  taste,  Mr.  Anthony  Hope  is  not 
an  innovator ;  he  adapts  but  does  not  originate. 
Yet  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  hear  him  errone- 
ously praised  for  having  created  two  new  and 
widely  popular  types  of  fiction,  the  Zenda  type 
and  that  of  The  Dolly  Dialogues.  Now,  The  Pris- 
oner of  Zenda,  as  we  remember  at  once  when  we 
stop  to  think,  is  not  the  first  up-to-date  sword  and 
buckler  story  of  an  imaginary  principality ;  it  was 
preceded,  by  nearly  a  decade,  by  Stevenson's 
Prince  Otto;  and  the  only  reason  that  it  so  often 
gets  the  credit  of  being  the  forerunner  of  its  class 
is  simply  because  it  was  done  with  a  defter,  lighter 
touch,  a  more  spontaneous  inspiration.  Similarly, 
The  Dolly  Dialogues  are  not  the  first  attempt  to 
imitate  in  English  the  sparkle  and  the  piquancy 
of  the  Gallic  dialogue  in  the  form  that  "  Gyp  "  and 
Henri  Lavedan  have  made  familiar.     Although  it 


234  ANTHONY  HOPE 

is  quite  likely  that  at  that  time  Anthony  Hope  had 
never  even  heard  of  it,  The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys 
had  at  least  three  years  the  start  of  The  Dolly  Dia- 
logues, and  even  though  it  was  done  with  a  heavier 
hand,  it  succeeded  in  getting  a  greater  effective- 
ness out  of  the  type. 

But,  after  all,  statistics  of  this  sort,  while  inter- 
esting to  a  person  of  precise  and  inquiring  mind, 
have  little  or  no  bearing  upon  the  sources  of  enjoy- 
ment which  a  surprisingly  large  number  of  people 
undoubtedly  find  in  Mr.  Hope!s  writings.  And 
there  is  variety  enough  among  them  to  suit  all 
tastes.  He  began  in  a  spirit  of  blithe  and  irre- 
sponsible romanticism;  he  has  gradually  come,  in 
his  later  years,  to  look  upon  life  in  a  rather  matter- 
of-fact  way  and  to  picture,  by  choice,  the  more 
serious  problems  of  life  in  the  social  world  to  which 
he  belongs.  Yet  his  novels,  even  the  most  am- 
bitious of  them,  never  suggest  the  ponderousness 
of  a  novel-with-a-purpose ;  he  never  forgets  what 
is  expected  from  a  conscientious  entertainer.  And 
one  reason  why  he  so  uniformly  succeeds  is  that 
he  is  an  exceedingly  good  craftsman ;  he  has  mas- 
tered the  sheer  mechanics  of  his  art.  It  is  never 
wise  for  a  novelist,  whatever  his  literary  creed 
may  be,  to  be  wantonly  scornful  of  technique. 
There  are  just  a  few  erratic  geniuses  who,  because 
they  have  in  them  certain  big  thoughts  that  are 
struggling  for  utterance  and  apparently  cannot 


ANTHONY  HOPE  235 

be  uttered  in  the  simple  usual  way,  boldly  break 
the  established  rules  and  make  new  ones  to  suit 
their  needs.  To  draw  an  offhand  parallel,  they 
are  somewhat  in  the  position  of  a  man  who,  al- 
though untrained  in  public  speaking,  is  listened 
to  indulgently  because  of  the  importance  of  what 
he  has  to  say.  But  your  public  entertainer  enjoys 
no  such  license ;  and  the  lighter  and  more  irre- 
sponsible his  theme  the  more  perfect  must  be  his 
execution.  And  it  is  because  Mr.  Hope  possesses 
that  magic  touch  of  the  born  story  teller,  that  such 
delightful  triflings  as  The  Dolly  Dialogues  and  The 
Indiscretion  of  the  Duchess  seem  to  linger  in  the 
memory  with  perennial  youth,  while  many  another 
weightier  volume  has  faded  out  with  the  passage 
of  years. 

Accordingly,  Mr.  Hope  belongs  to  that  order  of 
novelists  about  whom  it  is  not  only  more  enjoy- 
able but  more  profitable  to  gossip  genially  than 
to  weigh  strictly  in  the  balance.  It  is  so  easy 
to  become  garrulous  over  volumes  that  have  worn 
well  and  afford  many  a  pleasant  hour  of  relaxa- 
tion. It  would  be  purposeless  to  take  up  serially 
each  one  of  his  many  volumes,  analyze  and  pigeon- 
hole it  according  to  its  relative  value.  The  better 
and  the  franker  thing  to  do  is  to  admit  that  there 
are  certain  volumes  by  Mr.  Hope  which  gave  the 
present  writer  genuine  pleasure,  and  certain  others 
that  gave  him  no  pleasure  at  all,  and  that  those 


236  ANTHONY  HOPE 

falling  under  the  first  division  are  the  only  ones 
which  it  seems  worth  while  to  discuss.    In  his  ear- 
lier period  the  mere  mention  of  Anthony  Hope  con- 
jured up  scenes  of  spirited  adventure,  reckless  dar- 
ing, gallant  heroes  combining  the  good  breeding, 
the  patrician  ease,  the  assured  manner  of  the  bet- 
ter   class    of   young    Englishmen   possessing   the 
double   advantage   of  birth   and   education,   who, 
nevertheless,  despite  their  studied  reserye  and  im- 
maculateness    of   dress,   are   plunged   by   a   whim 
of  fate  into  adventures  of  extraordinary  daring 
and    sublime    audacity, — adventures    that    would 
have    taxed    the    prowess    of    Dumas's    Immortal 
Three.     It  is  a  clever  formula,  this  trick  of  tak- 
ing   certain    types    of    familiar    everyday    people 
straight  out  of  prosaic  actuality  and  compelling 
them,  whether  they  will  or  no,  to  perform  romantic 
deeds  against  a  romantic  background.    This  pecu- 
liar combination  was  certainly  a  happy  thought. 
It  appealed  to  that  latent   thirst   for  adventure 
which  we  almost  all  possess ;  it  unconsciously  flat- 
tered the  reader  with  a  new  sense  of  daring,  a  feel- 
ing that  he  too,  if  thus  suddenly  and  surprisingly 
transported  into  Zendaland,  might  similarly  rise 
to  the  occasion  and  achieve  great  deeds.     There  is 
no  purpose  served  by  analyzing  once   again  the 
story  of  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda.    It  is  one  of  those 
stories  the  artificiality  of  which  stands  out  glar- 
ingly the  moment  one  starts  to  lay  its  bones  bare. 


ANTHONY  HOPE  237 

Any  story  which  depends  upon  the  chance  resem- 
blance of  two  human  beings,  a  resemblance  so  close, 
so  misleading,  that  even  the  wife  of  one  of  the  two 
is  at  a  loss  to  distinguish  them,  takes  on,  when 
stated  briefly,  apart  from  the  glamour  of  the  tale 
itself,  an  air  of  palpable  falsity  to  life.  And  yet 
the  fact  remains  that  tens  of  thousands  of  readers 
have  lost  themselves,  forgotten  time  and  space, 
in  their  utter  absorption  in  the  dilemma  of  the 
Princess  Flavia,  who  finds  in  Rudolph  Rassendyl 
all  the  qualities  which  might  have  made  it  possible 
for  her  to  love  her  husband,  if  only  he  had  been 
as  close  a  replica  of  Rassendyl  morally  as  he  was 
physically. 

I  do  not  mind  admitting  that  personally  I  revert 
more  frequently  to  The  Dolly  Dialogues  than  to 
any  other  volume  by  Mr.  Hope.  This  is  not  merely 
because  of  the  delicate  touch  and  epigrammatic 
neatness  for  which  they  have  been  so  universally 
praised.  Superficially  considered  they  are  a  series 
of  encounters  between  a  sparkling  and  fascinating 
little  lady  and  a  sedate  and  nimble-witted  gentle- 
man, whom  it  is  insinuated  that  the  Lady  Dolly  has 
jilted.  Now,  the  real  fascination  about  these  bril- 
liant exchanges  of  repartee  lies  chiefly  in  the  subtle 
and  yet  elusive  implications  that  we  are  always  on 
the  point  of  reading  between  the  lines,  and  yet 
never  quite  get  in  their  entirety.  That  Mr.  Carter 
has  long  been  a  worshiper  at  the  shrine  of  Lady 


238  ANTHONY  HOPE 

Dolly,  that  he  has  many  a  time  felt  a  pang  of  re- 
gret that  his  fortune  in  life  has  made  him  ineligible, 
that  he  considers  her  husband  not  half  grateful 
enough  to  Providence  and  that  his  own  assumed 
air  of  sentimental  resignation  has  in  it  a  little 
touch  of  genuine  regret, — all  this  we  get  pretty 
clearly.  And  yet,  we  are  well  aware,  all  the  time, 
that  Mr.  Carter,  in  spite  of  an  occasional  twinge 
of  envy,  would  not  change  his  condition  if  he 
could ;  that,  although  he  may  not  be  precisely 
aware  of  it,  he  is  already  confirmed  in  his  bachelor 
habits ;  that  he  likes  his  freedom  from  responsi- 
bility, his  harmless,  unprofitable  daily  routine,  his 
favorite  corner  in  his  favorite  club,  his  innocent 
philandering  with  various  young  women,  married 
and  unmarried.  He  may,  at  times,  deceive  the 
Lady  Dolly  into  commiserating  him  and  blaming 
herself  as  a  thoughtless  coquette, — but  never 
for  very  long  at  a  time.  The  whole  thing  is  a 
sort  of  grown-up  game  of  make-believe  in  which 
the  players  get  a  curious  transitory,  almost  il- 
logical enjoyment  in  feigning  broken  hearts  and 
blighted  lives.  And  yet  there  is  just  enough  truth 
underlying  it  all  to  suggest  that  Mr.  Hope  was 
capable  of  more  serious  work  than  he  had  yet  done. 
There  was,  for  instance,  everywhere  a  pervading 
suggestion  of  the  infinite  number  of  contradictory 
motives  and  impulses  that  determine  every  human 
action,  and  the  impossibility  which  every  man  and 


ANTHONY  HOPE  239 

woman  must  admit  to  themselves  of  deciding  just 
how  much  gladness  and  how  much  regret  is  entailed 
in  every  least  little  thing  that  they  do. 

Almost  without  warning  Mr.  Hope  proved  that 
the  vague  promise  of  more  serious  work  was  well 
founded,  by  producing  what,  I  think,  the  sober 
judgment  of  posterity  will  recognize  as  his  most 
ambitious  and  most  enduring  work,  Quisante. 
Alexander  Quisante,  from  whom  the  volume  takes 
its  name,  is  not  an  Englishman  either  by  birth  or 
ancestry.  He  comes  of  antecedents  almost  un- 
known beyond  the  fact  that  they  are  a  mixture  of 
French  and  Spanish.  With  scanty  means  he 
comes,  an  absolute  outsider,  preparing  to  lay 
siege  to  the  political  and  social  world  of  London. 
In  every  way  he  finds  himself  handicapped.  The 
foreordained  course  of  education  through  which 
the  English  ruling  classes  pass  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  by  which  their  prejudices  and  points 
of  view  are  determined,  has  not  been  his  privilege. 
In  addition  to  this  he  lacks  that  inborn  refinement 
which  sometimes  makes  up  for  good  breding  and  so- 
cial experience.  His  taste  is  often  exceedingly  bad ; 
his  manner  is  alternately  too  subservient  and 
too  arrogant.  Of  the  higher  standards  of  morality 
he  has  no  perception ;  he  is  the  typical  adventurer, 
unscrupulous,  insincere,  monumentally  selfish. 
But,  to  offset  all  this,  his  intellect  is  quite  extraor- 
dinary; his  brain  is   an  instrument  marvelously 


240  ANTHONY  HOPE 

under  control,  and  he  uses  it  at  his  pleasure,  to 
bring  the  lesser  intellects  about  him  under  his 
dominion.  Above  all,  he  has  the  gift  of  eloquence ; 
and  when  he  chooses  to  give  full  rein  to  his  rhetori- 
cal powers,  he  can  sway  his  audience  at  will,  and 
thrill  and  sweep  them  with  him  through  the  whole 
gamut  of  human  emotions.  Of  the  men  and  women 
whom  he  meets,  fully  one-half  are  antagonized  and 
repelled ;  the  others  give  him  an  unquestioning,  al- 
most slavish  devotion.  But  he  has  a  personality 
which  cannot  leave  negative  results ;  it  must  breed 
love  or  hate. 

The  other  character  in  the  book  who  shares  the 
central  interest  is  Lady  May  Gaston,  a  woman 
who,  by  birth  and  training,  participates  in  all  those 
special  privileges  of  rank  and  caste,  all  the  tradi- 
tions of  her  order  from  which  Quisante  is  shut 
out.  There  is  another  man,  one  in  her  own  class, 
who  would  be  glad  to  make  her  his  wife.  He  is  in 
all  respects  the  sort  of  man  whom  she  is  expected  to 
marry;  and  she  is  not  wholly  indifferent  to  him. 
But  she  meets  Quisante,  and,  from  the  first,  comes 
under  the  spell  of  his  dominant  personality. 
There  is  much  in  him  from  which  she  shrinks.  His 
social  ineptitude,  his  faculty  for  doing  the  wrong 
thing,  or  the  right  thing  at  the  wrong  time,  makes 
her  shudder.  Although  fascinated,  she  is  not 
blinded.  She  sees  his  vulgarities,  she  questions  his 
sincerity,  she  even  doubts  whether  he  is  deserving 


ANTHONY  HOPE  241 

of  her  respect.  Nevertheless,  the  spectacular, 
flamboyant  brilliancy  of  the  man  dominates  her 
better  judgment,  and  in  spite  of  her  relatives'  re- 
monstrances, in  spite  of  warnings  from  a  member 
of  Quisante's  own  family,  she  marries  him,  unable 
to  resist  the  almost  hypnotic  spell  cast  over  her 
by  this  man,  who  is  something  of  a  charlatan  and 
something  of  a  cad.  The  greater  part  of  the  book 
concerns  itself  with  the  story  of  the  married  life 
of  this  curiously  ill-assorted  couple ;  of  his  success 
in  the  public  eye;  of  her  gradual  disillusionment, 
which,  bitter  though  it  is  in  its  completeness,  finds 
her  somewhat  apathetic,  unable  to  feel  the  resent- 
ment that  she  knows  she  ought,  unable  to  acknowl- 
edge that  she  regrets  her  choice.  This,  indeed,  is 
the  most  interesting  aspect  of  the  book,  the  domi- 
nation, mentally  and  morally,  of  a  woman  of  rare 
sensitiveness  and  infinite  possibilities  by  a  man 
■with  whom  companionship  inevitably  means  de- 
terioration. 

The  next  of  Mr.  Anthony  Hope's  volumes,  which 
personally  appealed  to  the  present  writer,  is  en- 
titled A  Servant  of  the  Public,  and  is  enjoyable 
chiefly  because  of  the  tantalizing  witchery  of  its 
heroine.  Ora  Pinsent  is  a  young  actress,  who  has 
taken  London  by  storm.  She  has  a  husband  some- 
where, it  is  said,  "  whose  name  does  not  matter  " ; 
indeed,  it  matters  so  little  that  it  does  not  prevent 
her  from  letting  Ashley  Mead  make  ardent  love  to 


242  ANTHONY  HOPE 

her,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  though  all  the  while 
she  "  preserves  wonderfully  the  air  of  not  being 
responsible  for  the  thing,  of  neither  accepting 
nor  rejecting,  of  being  quite  passive,  of  having  it 
just  happen  to  her."  Thus  with  a  single  penstroke 
Mr.  Hope  has  set  the  woman  unmistakably  before 
us.  Throughout  the  book  she  practises  the  art 
of  having  things  just  happen  to  her,  the  art  of 
dodging  responsibility.  With  Ashley  she  drifts, 
dangerously  one  thinks,  at  first,  until  one  sees  how 
easily  she  checks  his  ardor  when  she  chooses,  with 
a  nervous  laugh,  and  a  low  whispered  "  Don't, 
don't  make  love  to  me  any  more  now."  She  talks 
much  solemn  nonsense  about  her  duty  to  the  hus- 
band whose  name  does  not  matter,  and  about  her 
intention  to  renounce  Ashley,  although  one  realizes 
that  there  is  really  nothing  to  renounce,  nor  ever 
will  be.  And  when  the  time  comes  for  her  com- 
pany to  leave  London  and  start  on  their  American 
tour,  here  also  she  plays  the  passive  role,  neither 
accepting  nor  rejecting.  It  is  only  when  the  weary 
months  of  her  absence  are  over  and  she  comes  back 
as  the  wife  of  her  leading  man,  that  Ashley  begins 
to  see  her  as  she  really  is ;  only  then  that  he  feels 
her  power  over  him  has  ceased ;  only  then  that  he 
can  say,  "  I  no  longer  love  her,  but  I  wish  to  God 
I  did !  "  It  is  not  easy  to  convey  an  impression 
of  a  woman's  charm,  when  it  lies  not  in  what  she 
says,  but  in  the  way  she  says  it;  not  in  what  she 


ANTHONY  HOPE  24-3 

docs,  but  in  the  way  she  does  it.  But  this  is  pre- 
cisely what  Anthony  Hope  has  done  triumphantly 
in  his  portraiture  of  Ora  Pinsent, — Ora,  with  her 
upturned  face,  with  its  habitual  expression  of  ex- 
pecting to  be  kissed,  is  one  of  the  heroines 
in  contemporary  fiction  that  will  not  easily  be  for- 
gotten. 

Helena's  Path  deserves  something  more  than  a 
passing  word  of  commendation,  for  it  is  an  ex- 
cellent example  of  Mr.  Hope's  deftness  in  doing 
a  very  slight  thing  extremely  well.  It  has  an 
outward  framework  of  actuality,  the  atmosphere 
of  present  day  English  country  life;  yet  into  this 
he  has  infused  a  certain  spirit  of  old-time  chiv- 
alry and  homage  that  gives  to  his  whole  picture 
something  of  the  grace  and  charm  of  a  Watteau 
landscape.  The  whole  theme  of  the  volume,  which 
is  scarcely  more  than  a  novelette,  concerns  itself 
with  a  right  of  way.  The  hero's  estates  lie  some- 
where on  the  east  coast  of  England ;  but  between 
his  land  and  the  strip  of  beach  where  he  and  his 
fathers  before  him  have  for  generations  been  in 
the  habit  of  bathing  lies  the  property  which  the 
heroine  has  recently  purchased ;  and,  unaware  of 
any  right  of  way,  she  closes  up  the  gate  through 
which  it  is  his  habit  to  pass  for  his  daily  swim.  He 
writes  courteously  but  firmly,  insisting  on  his  right. 
She  answers  in  the  same  spirit,  emphatically 
denying  it.     He  refuses  to  be  robbed  of  his  legal 


244  ANTHONY  HOPE 

rights,  even  by  a  pretty  woman ;  she  refuses  to 
yield,  at  a  command,  what  she  would  have  gra- 
ciously granted  to  a  prayer.  As  neither  side 
chooses  to  adopt  legal  measures,  a  state  of  mimic 
war  ensues,  in  which  he  continues  to  invade  the 
enemy's  territory,  while  she  continues  to  barricade 
and  intrench.  And  all  the  while,  although  they 
have  not  once  met  face  to  face,  each  is  quietly 
falling  in  love  with  the  other,  so  that  when  finally 
honorable  terms  of  peace  are  concluded,  it  is  al- 
ready a  foregone  conclusion  that  the  whole  dainty 
little  comedy  will  end  with  oaths  of  fealty  and 
bestowal  of  favors  worthy  of  a  knight  and  a  lady 
of  the  olden  times. 

With  the  passage  of  years,  however,  the  author 
of  The  Dolly  Dialogues  has  tended  to  give  us  fewer 
and  fewer  of  these  dainty  trifles  and  more  and 
more  of  his  serious  and  careful  social  studies.  In 
this  class  belongs  The  Great  Miss  Driver,  and 
there  is  no  exaggeration  in  saying  that  since  the 
publication  of  Quisante  it  is  easily  the  biggest, 
best-rounded,  and  altogether  worthiest  book  he 
has  written.  And  yet,  the  first  thing  you  are  apt 
to  think  of  is  that  the  germ  idea  of  the  story  goes 
straight  back  to  The  Dolly  Dialogues;  that  in  a 
superficial  way,  yes,  and  perhaps  in  a  deeper  way, 
too,  there  is  a  certain  rather  absurd  similarity 
between  them;  just  as  though  the  author,  having 
once  made  a  pleasant  little  comedy  out  of  a  cer- 


ANTHONY  HOPE  245 

tain  situation,  had  ever  since  been  turning  over  in 
his  mind  the  possibility  of  using  it  in  a  bigger  and 
more  serious  way,  until  eventually  he  evolved  the 
present  volume.  Not  that  Jennie  Driver,  heiress 
to  Breysgate  Priory,  bears  any  close  resemblance 
to  Lady  Mickleham  beyond  the  very  feminine  de- 
sire for  conquest, — any  more  than  the  Air.  Austin 
of  the  one  story  is  a  close  relative  of  Mr.  Carter 
in  the  other.  The  resemblance  lies  in  this,  that 
both  stories  are  told  in  the  first  person  by  the 
man  who  in  his  secret  heart  loves  the  woman  of 
whom  he  writes,  but  knows  that  because  he  is 
poor,  because  he  has  the  natural  instinct  of  an  old 
bachelor,  because,  also,  she  has  given  her  heart 
elsewhere,  he  must  remain  content  to  look  upon 
her  joys  and  sorrows  in  the  capacity  of  a 
friend,  and  not  that  of  a  lover.  To  this  ex- 
tent The  Great  Miss  Driver  may  be  defined 
as  The  Dolly  Dialogues  rendered  in  a  different 
tempo. 

Yet,  such  a  definition  gives  no  hint  of  the 
strength,  the  variety,  the  vital  interest  of  this 
story.  In  the  character  of  Jennie  Driver  Air.  Hope 
has  given  us  a  woman  whose  ruling  passion  is  to 
hold  sway,  to  fascinate  and  bend  to  her  will  every 
one  who  comes  within  her  sphere.  And  because 
of  this  desire  she  can  never  bear  to  lose  the  al- 
legiance of  any  man,  no  matter  how  mean  and 
unworthy  he  has  proved  himself;  and  herein  lies 


246  ANTHONY  HOPE 

the  source  of  her  life's  tragedy.  She  is  not  con- 
tent to  be  merely  the  richest  woman  in  the  county, 
to  play  the  part  of  Lady  Bountiful,  and  build 
memorials  and  endow  institutions  with  fabulous 
sums ;  she  wants  also  to  be  a  social  leader  with 
undisputed  right  to  take  precedence  over  all  the 
other  ladies  of  the  community, — and  this  she  could 
do  if  she  married  Lord  Fillingford,  whom  she  re- 
spects, and  who  badly  needs  her  fortune ;  but 
not  if  she  should  marry  Leonard  Octon,  big, 
brusque,  rather  brutal,  who  is  cut  by  the  whole 
county,  and  whom  she  happens  to  love.  It  is  a 
rather  unique  situation  in  fiction  for  a  woman  to 
be  forced  into  publicly  slighting  the  one  man  on 
earth  that  she  cares  for;  still  more  unique  for  a 
woman  who  is  pledged  to  marry  one  man  to  be 
secretly  meeting  the  other  man,  and  thus  atoning 
for  deliberately  cutting  him  whenever  they  meet  in 
public.  And,  surely,  it  was  a  rather  audacious 
thing  for  Mr.  Hope  to  attempt  to  make  us  feel 
that  in  spite  of  her  double-dealing  Jennie  Driver 
is  a  rather  big  and  fine  and  splendid  sort  of 
woman;  that  she  would  have  kept  faith  with  Fill- 
ingford had  he  been  big  enough  to  trust  her  when 
appearances  were  heavily  against  her ;  and  that  in 
defying  convention  and  scandalizing  the  little 
world  she  lives  in  by  fleeing  with  Octon  to  Paris, 
she  is  doing  the  one  big,  brave,  inevitable  act. 
Yet,  that  is  precisely  what  the  author  does  sue- 


ANTHONY  HOPE  247 

ceed  in  making  us  feel ;  and  when  because  Fate  in- 
tervenes and  wrecks  the  last  chance  of  Jennie's 
happiness  through  the  death  of  Octon,  we  not 
only  sympathize  with  her  bitterness  toward  the 
narrow-minded  social  circle  that  had  forced  her 
lover  into  exile,  but  we  also  glory  with  her  in  the 
big,  carefully  planned  and  altogether  adequate  re- 
venge by  which  she  forces  the  county  to  pay  tardy 
homage  to  the  name  of  Octon. 

Notwithstanding  the  statement  made  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  chapter,  to  the  effect  that  Mr.  An- 
thony Hope  does  not  write  problem  novels,  the 
volume  entitled  Mrs.  Maxon  Protests  comes 
critically  near  the  border-line.  Mrs.  Maxon  is  sim- 
ply one  more  young  woman  who  has  discovered 
marriage  to  be  something  vastly  different  from 
what  she  had  imagined ;  and  her  difficulty  is  of  the 
variety  which  she  regards  as  almost  humiliatingly 
commonplace — namely,  incompatibility.  Her  hus- 
band happens  to  be  one  of  those  narrow,  self- 
satisfied,  dictatorial  men,  with  old-fashioned  ideas 
about  women  in  general  and  a  rooted  conviction 
that  a  man  has  a  high  moral  responsibility  for  his 
wife's  conduct  and  must  mould  her  in  all  fashions 
to  his  own  way  of  thinking.  Mrs.  Maxon  bears  the 
strain  for  five  years ;  then  she  consults  a  lawyer. 
She  learns  that  while  she  cannot  get  a  divorce  in 
England,  she  can  leave  her  husband  and  he  cannot 
force   her   to   come  back.     At   the   time   of  their 


248  ANTHONY  HOPE 

separation,  or  to  be  more  accurate,  her  desertion 
of  him — for  Maxon  refuses  to  take  the  matter 
seriously — there  is  no  other  man  in  her  life;  but 
in  the  weeks  that  follow  during  which  she  stays  at 
the  country  home  of  some  friends  with  lax  ideas  of 
life  and  a  houseful  of  curious  and  often  irregular 
people,  she  suddenly  surprises  herself  by  falling  in 
love  with  a  certain  Godfrey  Ledstone  and  promptly 
scandalizes  society  by  eloping  with  him  openly  and 
unashamed.  The  rest  of  the  book  traces,  with  a 
clear-sightedness  that  Mr.  Hope  has  not  always 
shown  in  his  books,  the  subsequent  career  of  a 
woman  who  thinks  that  by  the  force  of  her  own 
example  she  can  bring  the  whole  world  over  to  her 
way  of  thinking.  He  does  not  spare  us  any  of  her 
disillusions,  her  humiliations,  her  heartache  and 
loneliness.  But  through  it  all  she  is  learning, 
strangely  and  cruelly  learning,  much  that  is  exceed- 
ingly good  for  her.  She  is  learning,  for  instance, 
that  charity  and  sympathy  and  understanding  are 
often  found  where  least  expected.  She  is  learning, 
too,  that  there  are  many  other  standards  in  this 
world  as  well  as  her  own  and  that  they  are  just 
as  reasonable  and  perhaps  nobler.  She  learns 
that  one  of  the  best  men  she  has  ever  had  the 
good  fortune  to  meet,  loving  her,  pitying  her, 
utterly  disapproving  of  her,  would  nevertheless 
have  made  her  his  wife  in  spite  of  the  scandal  that 
had  preceded  and  followed  her  divorce — but  for 


ANTHONY  HOPE  249 

one  reason:  he  is  an  army  officer,  and  a  woman 
with  a  taint  upon  her  name  would  lower  the  social 
tone  of  his  regiment  and  be  in  some  degree  a 
menace  to  the  moral  tone  of  the  younger  set.  It 
is  a  temptation  to  analyze  at  some  length  the 
separate  episodes  of  this  rather  unusual  book 
throughout  the  years  while  Mrs.  Maxon  is  slowly 
finding  her  way  out  of  the  quagmire  of  her  own 
making  into  a  belated  peace  and  happiness.  Yet, 
after  all,  what  the  book  stands  for  is  so  admirably 
summed  up  in  the  concluding  paragraph  that  one 
cannot  do  it  a  greater  service  than  to  close  with 
one  brief  quotation.  It  is  a  satisfaction  to  find  a 
book  written  upon  this  theme  which,  while  recog- 
nizing that  there  is  much  to  be  said  on  both  sides, 
shows  neither  vindictiveness  toward  the  woman  nor 
a  misplaced  championship  that  would  exalt  her 
into  a  martyr. 

In  the  small  circle  of  those  with  whom  she  had 
shared  the  issues  of  destiny  she  had  unsettled  much; 
of  a  certainty  she  had  settled  nothing.  Things  were 
just  as  much  in  solution  as  ever;  the  welter  was  not 
abated.  Man  being  imperfect,  laws  must  be  made. 
Man  being  imperfect,  laws  must  be  broken  or  ever 
new  laws  will  be  made.  Winnie  Maxon  had  broken 
a  law  and  asked  a  question.  When  thousands  do  the 
like,  the  Giant,  after  giving  the  first  comers  a  box 
on  the  ear,  may  at  last  put  his  hand  to  his  own  and 
ponderously  consider. 


250  ANTHONY  HOPE 

Such  are  the  volumes  chosen  as  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal preference,  out  of  the  generous  series  that 
Mr.  Hope  has  so  industriously  turned  out,  during 
a  score  of  years.  Another  reader's  choice  might 
be  different,  and  who  shall  say  whether  it  would 
not  be  as  well  justified?  Because,  the  first  duty  of 
a  public  entertainer  is  to  entertain ;  and,  taking 
this  for  a  criterion,  the  most  that  any  one  can  say 
of  his  own  knowledge  is,  such-and-such  volumes 
have  entertained  me.  It  is  obvious  that  Mr.  Hope's 
own  preference  is  for  his  more  serious  work,  that 
with  the  passage  of  years  he  has  grown  more  will- 
ing to  allow  the  books  of  his  romantic  period  to 
fade  from  sight.  Yet,  by  doing  this,  he  challenges 
a  harder  competition,  a  stricter  measurement 
against  a  host  of  rivals.  There  has  been  no  one  to 
give  us  a  second  Prisoner  of  Zenda,  excepting  Mr. 
Hope  himself, — notwithstanding  that  many  an- 
other writer  has  tried  his  best.  But  it  would  be 
easy  to  name  a  dozen  contemporary  novelists  who 
could  give  us  the  annals  of  another  Servant  of  the 
People,  or  chronicle  some  further  Intrusions  of 
Peggy, — and  one  or  two  who,  perhaps,  could  do  it 
better.  Mr.  Hope  is  not  one  of  the  great  novelists 
of  his  generation ;  but  he  is  never  mediocre,  and 
even  in  his  uninspired  moments  never  dull.  His 
Prisoner  of  Zenda  and  his  Dolly  Dialogues  were 
both  gems  of  the  first  water ;  his  Quisante  certainly 
suffers  nothing  by  comparison  with  George  Gis- 


ANTHONY  HOPE  251 

sing's  Charlatan,  separated  from  it  by  barely  a 
year.  As  a  chronicler  of  English  manners  he  is 
certainly  of  rather  more  importance  than  Mr.  E. 
F.  Benson  or  Mr.  Maarten  Maartens,  although  not 
in  the  same  class  with  Galsworthy,  Bennett,  or 
W.  H.  Maxwell.  He  will  be  remembered,  I  think, 
somewhat  as  William  Black  and  Marion  Crawford 
are  remembered,  as  having  preserved  a  wholesome 
optimism,  an  unshaken  belief  in  human  nature,  and 
as  having  done  his  part  to  keep  the  tone  of  the 
modern  novel  clean  and  wholesome. 


MAY  SINCLAIR 

The  difficulty  which  must  be  faced  in  attempting 
to  write  a  critical  estimate  of  the  work  of  May 
Sinclair,  considered  as  a  whole,  is  that  this  is  pre- 
cisely the  way  in  which  it  refuses  to  be  considered. 
Her  novels  are  hopelessly,  irremediably  incom- 
mensurate; they  have  no  common  denominator; 
they  reveal  nothing  in  the  way  of  a  logical  pro- 
gression, of  mental  or  spiritual  growth  from  book 
to  book,  from  theme  to  theme ;  The  Tysons,  The 
Divine  Fire,  The  Helpmate,  the  three  conspicuous 
volumes  of  three  separate  periods,  might,  so  far 
as  any  sequence  in  thought  or  method  is  concerned, 
be  the  product  of  three  different  brains,  striving 
diversely  towards  three  several  artistic  ideals. 
The  first  is  merely  a  clever  character  study  of  an 
exceptional  man  and  woman,  whose  union  inevita- 
bly leads  to  tragedy ;  the  second  is  a  prose  epic  of 
genius  battling  for  recognition,  a  myriad-sided 
picture  of  modern  life,  flung  before  us  with  spend- 
thrift prodigality;  the  third  is  a  deliberately  cal- 
culated problem  novel,  in  which  the  finer  realities 
of  speech  and  action  are  sacrificed  at  the  shrine 
of  the  author's  purpose.     In  certain  qualities  of 

252 


MAY   SINCLAIR 


MAY  SINCLAIR  253 

style,  no  doubt,  it  would  be  easy,  if  such  proof 
were  required,  to  show  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  all 
the  volumes  which  bear  the  signature  of  May  Sin- 
clair actually  have  emanated  from  her  pen.  Cer- 
tain felicitous  phrasings  of  description,  certain 
luminous  flashes  of  subtle  understanding,  leave  the 
imprint  of  a  distinctive  hall-mark  on  all  her  writ- 
ings. It  is  not  the  faltering  hand  of  the  artist, 
but  the  difference  in  the  nature  and  magnitude  of 
the  inspiration  behind  the  work  that  has  made  her 
successive  volumes  so  astonishingly  uneven,  so  im- 
possible to  measure  one  against  another. 

The  plain  and  unwelcome  truth  which  forces 
itself  home  with  obstinate  persistence,  in  propor- 
tion as  one  studies  Miss  Sinclair's  literary  produc- 
tions, is  that  for  the  purposes  of  serious  criticism, 
she  is  the  author  of  just  one  book.  Her  other 
volumes  are  full  of  interesting  promise ;  The  Di- 
vine Fire  is  big  with  achievement;  her  other  vol- 
umes are  written  from  her  head ;  but  The  Divine 
Fire  came  at  white  heat  from  her  very  heart  and 
soul.  The  very  qualities  that  stamp  it  as  of  the 
first  magnitude  are  many  of  them  conspicuously 
absent  alike  from  her  earlier  and  subsequent  books. 
In  her  recent  work,  especially,  she  tends  more  and 
more  to  speak  as  one  having  authority,  and  her 
theories  of  life  persist  in  looming  up  larger  than 
the  specific  human  tale  she  has  to  tell;  while  the 
great  triumph  of  The  Divine  Fire  lies  precisely  in 


254  MAY  SINCLAIR 

the  absence  of  any  such  intrusion  on  the  author's 
part,  in  its  splendid  and  unvarying  impersonality. 
It  was  really  quite  curious,  this  sudden  and  be- 
wildering fruition  of  unsuspected  genius.  It  came 
absolutely  unheralded.  There  was  nothing  in  its 
predecessors,  nothing  in  the  uneven  ability  of  The 
Tysons  or  the  more  finished  art  of  a  less  pre- 
tentious tale  such  as  Superseded,  that  would  give 
even  a  hint  of  the  cycloramic  sweep  of  treatment, 
the  breadth  of  vision,  the  deep,  comprehensive 
human  sympathy  of  The  Divine  Fire, — just  as, 
despite  the  lavish  praise  of  her  admirers,  there  is 
no  promise  in  anything  she  has  since  done  that  she 
will  ever  again  rise  to  similar  heights,  ever  dupli- 
cate her  masterpiece.  Nor  is  there  anywhere  a 
hint  that  she  has  the  ambition  to  attempt  it.  Hav- 
ing once  achieved  a  novel  of  the  epic  type,  vibrant 
with  the  surge  of  human  passions,  the  turmoil  of 
civic  life,  she  seems  content  to  fling  aside  the 
formula,  reject  the  spacious  canvas  and  bold, 
virile  brush-stroke,  and  content  herself  with  the 
subtler,  more  etching-like  precision  of  intimate 
home  portraiture,  the  secret  infelicities  of  married 
life.  Now  in  the  treatment  of  these  delicate  prob- 
lems of  sex,  it  seems,  as  I  have  had  occasion  to  say 
elsewhere,  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  "Frank 
Danby,"  almost  impossible  for  a  woman  writer  to 
achieve  the  impersonal,  scientific  detachment  of  a 
surgeon   presiding    at    a    clinic ;    there   is    always 


MAY  SINCLAIR  255 

either  a  self-conscious  reticence,  or  else,  what  is 
worse,  that  courage  of  desperation  which  ends  by 
blurting  out  the  reluctant  words  with  needless  and 
startling  frankness.  In  her  ability  to  write  of  such 
matters  with  virile  unconcern,  "  Frank  Danby  " 
stands  unrivaled  among  the  women  writers  of  Eng- 
land. To  the  normal  and  healthy  mind,  there 
should  be  no  more  embarrassment  in  reading  even 
the  most  outspoken  passages  of  Pigs  in  Clover 
than  there  would  be  in  reading,  let  us  say,  a  stand- 
ard treatise  on  obstetrics.  And  this  is  precisely 
what  Miss  Sinclair,  with  far  greater  personal 
delicacy,  cannot  achieve.  There  are  pages  in  The 
Tysons,  The  Helpmate  and  The  Judgment  of  Eve 
in  which  the  veil  of  intimate  mysteries  is  snatched 
aside  and  human  frailty  so  uncompromisingly 
labeled  that  the  reader  instinctively  casts  a  con- 
scious glance  around  him,  in  order  to  be  assured 
that  he  is  alone.  This  is  a  feeling  that  has  come 
to  me  a  score  of  times  in  reading  Miss  Sinclair's 
books ;  and  the  oddest  thing  of  all  is  that  there  is 
just  one  volume  that  never  for  an  instant  casts 
even  a  shadow  of  this  sort  of  sense  of  trespass- 
ing on  forbidden  ground,  namely,  The  Divine  Fire. 
And  this  is  not  because  of  any  lack  of  boldness  in 
theme,  any  cowardly  closing  of  the  eyes  to  the 
actualities  of  life ;  on  the  contrary,  the  book  has 
that  full  share  of  human  error  and  weakness  that 
is  inevitable  in  any  cross-section  of  life,  cut  boldly 


25G  MAY  SINCLAIR 

and  on  a  large  scale.  But  because  the  book  is  con- 
ceived on  so  high  a  plane,  because  in  fact  it  has 
around  it  a  halo  of  the  sacred  fire,  the  sins  of  the 
flesh  are  dwarfed  to  their  proper  relative  value  as 
factors  having  their  significance  in  the  develop- 
ment of  human  destinies,  not  as  something  to  be 
whispered,  with  innuendoes,  from  behind  a  fan. 

In  order  to  see  more  plainly  the  gulf,  both  in 
workmanship  and  in  ideas,  that  lies  between  The 
Divine  Fire  and  all  her  other  books,  let  us  examine 
certain  representative  volumes  of  Miss  Sinclair's 
earlier  and  later  period  somewhat  briefly,  reserv- 
ing a  more  detailed  analysis  of  her  crowning  work 
for  the  last.  Miss  Sinclair's  works  have  come  to 
us  in  America  in  such  chronological  confusion  that 
their  proper  sequence  in  time  is  still  a  matter  of 
considerable  confusion,  among  a  large  proportion 
of  her  readers.  Audrey  Craven,  which,  I  under- 
stand, is,  with  the  exception  of  some  Essays  in 
Verse,  her  earliest  published  volume,  is  also  the 
most  easily  negligible.  It  has  cleverness  and  a 
certain  kind  of  humor ;  and  it  relates,  in  a  vein  of 
light  satire,  the  history  of  a  young  woman  whose 
"  long  quest  of  the  eminent  and  superlative  "  ends 
in  the  anti-climax  of  marriage  with  a  nonentity ;  a 
fundamentally  insincere  young  woman,  who  misses 
her  last  chance  of  attaining  her  heart's  desire,  be- 
cause in  a  burst  of  frankness  she  confesses  that 
once  she  had  a  terrible  temptation: 


MAY  SINCLAIR  257 

It  came  to  me  through  some  one  whom  I  loved — 
very  dearly.  I  was  ready  to  give  up  everything — 
everything,  you  understand — for  him ;  and  I  would 
have  done  it,  only — God  was  good  to  me.  He  made 
it  impossible  for  me,  and  I  was  saved.  But  I  am 
just  as  bad,  just  as  guilty,  as  if  he  had  let  it  happen. 

And  because  the  man  to  whom  she  confesses 
has  the  narrowness  of  a  certain  kind  of  religious 
asceticism,  and  agrees  with  her  that  she  is  "just 
as  guilty,"  they  pass  out  of  each  other's  lives. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nevill  Tyson,  which  in  the  Ameri- 
can edition  suffered  an  unfortunate  abbreviation 
of  title,  is,  in  spite  of  certain  crudities,  a  book  of 
much  more  serious  import.  Nevill  Tyson  is  of 
plebeian  birth, — his  father  kept  a  tailor  shop  at 
an  early  stage  in  his  career, — and  a  cosmopolitan 
by  education.  He  has  lived  largely  by  his  wits, 
and  seen  much  service  in  peace  and  in  war,  always 
just  missing  the  achievement  of  fame  or  fortune. 
Suddenly,  fate  plays  upon  him  the  curious  prank 
of  forcing  him  into  the  position  of  country  gentle- 
man, a  role  difficult  of  fulfilment  for  a  man  who 
has  scant  liking  for  the  country  and  lacks  certain 
essentials  of  gentle  breeding.  Now,  if  Mr.  Nevill 
Tyson  could  have  been  content  to  do  the  expected 
thing, — expected,  that  is,  in  the  narrow  social  cir- 
cles of  Drayton  Parva, — if  he  could  have  inter- 
ested himself  in  the  famous  orchid  collection  of  his 
late  uncle,  old  Tyson  of  Thorneytoft ;  and  if  he 


258  MAY  SINCLAIR 

could  have  brought  himself  to  marry  a  clever 
woman  with  an  unassailable  position,  all  might 
have  gone  well.  But  instead  he  chose  to  marry 
little  Mollie  Wilcox,  a  mere  nobody  with  whom, 
scandal-mongers  insisted,  he  had  struck  up  an  ac- 
quaintance in  a  public  railway  carriage, — but  "  an 
adorable  piece  of  folly,"  none  the  less,  "  an  illusion 
and  a  distraction  from  head  to  foot ;  her  beauty 
made  a  promise  to  the  senses  and  broke  it  to  the 
intellect."  "  My  husband  says  I  am  the  soul  of  in- 
discretion," she  confesses  blithely,  while  he,  with 
more  candor  than  good  taste,  says  openly,  "  My 
wife  has  about  as  much  intellect  as  a  guinea-pig, 
and  the  consequence  is  that  she  is  not  only  happy 
herself,  but  the  cause  of  happiness  in  others." 
What  neither  Mr.  Nevill  Tyson,  nor  the  narrow 
souls  of  Drayton  Parva  society,  nor  even  Nevill's 
one  intimate  friend,  Stanistreet,  could  understand, 
was  that  little  Mrs.  Nevill  loved  her  husband  with 
an  all-consuming  passion,  that  left  no  room  for 
other  emotions.  She  was  unaware  that  Stanistreet 
was  in  love  with  her,  unaware  that  Drayton  Parva 
was  all  agog  with  malevolent  gossip  connecting 
their  names.  Stanistreet  was  to  her  simply  her 
husband's  friend,  some  one  with  whom  she  could 
talk  of  Nevill  when  he  was  absent,  some  one  who 
had  known  Nevill  before  she  had,  and  could  have 
told  her  many  episodes  of  his  early  life, — episodes 
which  the  poor  little  lady  was  mercifully  spared 


MAY  SINCLAIR  259 

from  hearing.  As  for  Nevill,  a  man  who  never  in 
his  life  before  had  known  what  it  was  to  care  for 
a  woman,  he  was  for  the  time  being  curiously  and 
illogically  happy,  until  after  the  birth  of  his  son 
and  heir.  And  at  this  point  in  the  story  a  para- 
graph occurs  which  deserves  to  be  quoted  at 
some  length,  because  the  subtle  truth  of  it,  the 
understanding  of  a  certain  type  of  man  by  no 
means  uncommon,  is  almost  uncanny  on  the  part 
of  a  young  woman  in  the  early  course  of  her 
second  book.  It  brings  back  to  mind  analogous 
pages  in  that  quite  remarkable  volume  by  Edouard 
Rod,  he  Sense  de  la  Vie: 

Tyson  had  not  the  least  objection  to  Stanistreet 
or  Sir  Peter  and  the  rest  of  them,  they  were  welcome 
to  stare  at  his  wife  as  much  as  they  pleased;  but  he 
was  insanely  jealous  of  this  minute  masculine  thing 
that  claimed  so  much  of  her  attention.  He  began 
to  have  a  positive  dislike  to  seeing  her  with  the  child. 
There  was  a  strain  of  morbid  sensibility  in  his  nature, 
and  what  was  beautiful  to  him  in  a  Botticelli  Ma- 
donna, properly  painted  and  framed,  was  not  beauti- 
ful— to  him — in  Mrs.  Nevill  Tyson.  He  had  the 
sentiment  of  the  thing,  as  I  said,  but  the  thing  itself, 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  it,  was  altogether  too  much  for 
his  fastidious  nerves. 

So,  in  order  to  hold  her  husband's  love,  that  she 
feels  is  slipping  from  her,  Mrs.  Tyson  sacrificed 


260  MAY  SINCLAIR 

her  child.  Weaned  too  soon,  and  intrusted  to  an 
incompetent  nurse,  it  promptly  and  very  naturally 
died ;  and  when  the  mother  reappeared  in  the 
village,  showing  a  "  hard,  tearless  face,"  all  Dray- 
ton Parva  "  was  alive  to  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Nevill 
Tyson  was  an  unnatural  mother."  Up  to  this 
point,  the  book  is  an  admirable  little  study  of  an 
ill-assorted  marriage,  made  hopeless  from  the  start 
by  a  man's  monumental  selfishness  and  the  med- 
dling of  scandal-loving  neighbors.  But  what  fol- 
lows is  too  violent,  too  extreme,  too  needlessly 
cruel;  it  lacks  the  restraint  that  is  the  key-note 
of  good  art.  That  Nevill  is  fundamentally  in- 
capable of  remaining  true  to  any  woman  is  made 
sufficiently  obvious  ;  but  that  after  the  death  of  her 
child  he  should  take  his  wife  to  London  and  then 
slip  away,  vanish  from  sight,  leaving  her  alone  and 
friendless,  in  the  midst  of  her  grief,  is  a  little 
harder  to  accept.  And  when  Stanistreet  takes 
advantage  of  her  loneliness  to  ingratiate  himself 
by  offerings  of  flowers,  theater  tickets,  luncheons 
and  dinners,  and  she  naively  accepts  them  all,  be- 
cause so  long  as  Stanistreet  is  with  her,  she  feels 
that  she  "  has  not  quite  lost  Nevill,"  it  seems  in- 
consistent with  the  husband's  character  and  with 
his  deep  understanding  of  women,  that  he  should 
suddenly  return,  and,  finding  his  friend  with  her, 
brutally  accuse  her  of  infidelity.  Then  comes  the 
night  when  Nevill,  after  drinking  too  freely,  causes 


MAY  SINCLAIR  261 

a  lamp  to  overturn,  and  his  wife  rescues  him,  at  the 
cost  of  scars  which  destroy  her  beauty  forever. 
There  are  a  few  brief  weeks  when  the  man  thinks 
that  he  can  rise  above  himself  and  repay  her  sacri- 
fice with  a  lasting  devotion ;  but  the  daily  sight  of 
that  disfigured  face  is  more  than  his  "  fastidious 
nerves  "  can  bear  ;  so  he  raises  a  volunteer  company 
and  sets  off  for  the  Soudan,  where  he  dies  a  hero's 
death,  after  having  slain  his  wife  by  his  desertion 
as  surely  as  though  he  had  put  a  bullet  through 
her  heart.  The  trouble  with  the  book  is  that  it  is 
overdrawn ;  the  woman  is  a  little  more  than  human, 
the  man  a  little  less.  The  end  is  melodrama,  the 
"  brutal,  jubilant  lust  of  battle,"  and  a  "  wooden 
cross  in  the  shifting  sands."  It  is  amazing  how 
readily  an  obsequious  bullet,  at  the  author's  beck 
and  nod,  consents  to  cut  short  a  misspent  life  at 
the  psychological  moment. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  the  amateurishness 
of  The  Tysons  to  a  much  more  modest  bit  of  work 
which,  nevertheless,  in  its  own  way  is  very  nearly 
flawless.  There  is  so  much  simple  pathos,  so  much 
genuine  human  nature  in  Superseded  that  only  a 
writer  of  the  first  rank  could  have  wrought  such 
deft  effects  of  light  and  shade  from  such  slight  ma- 
terial. It  is  merely  the  humble  tragedy  of  a  timid, 
colorless,  inefficient  school-teacher  whom  Fate 
originally  thrust  into  a  niche  that  she  could  never 
adequately  fill;  and  then,  after  she  has  spent  her 


262  MAY  SINCLAIR 

strength  for  years  in  the  pitiful  struggle  to  do 
what  is  demanded  of  her,  unexpectedly  thrusts 
her  out  to  an  old  age  of  helplessness  and  want. 
The  humble  little  woman's  unspoken  romance,  the 
harmless  dreams  which  she  weaves  around  the 
young  physician  who  befriends  her  and  who  has 
already  given  his  heart  to  another  and  younger 
teacher, — the  one  destined,  as  the  irony  of  life  wills 
it,  to  supersede  her, — is  the  most  delicate  part  of  a 
story  which  eludes  analysis,  and  gives  it  its  chief 
charm.  It  would  be  difficult  to  point  out  another 
story  in  English  which  portrays  with  such  quiet 
strength  the  pathos  of  inefficient  old  age,  the 
anguish  of  discovering  that  one  has  outlived  one's 
usefulness. 

Superseded  originally  appeared  just  three  years 
before  The  Divine  Fire,  the  same  interval  of  time 
that  intervened  before  the  appearance  of  Miss 
Sinclair's  next  novel,  The  Helpmate.  Towards  this 
volume  I  must  confess  to  an  antagonism  incom- 
patible with  the  judicial  impartiality  of  criticism. 
It  is  a  well-intentioned  book,  built  upon  an  inter- 
esting thesis ;  but,  because  its  chief  characters  are 
faultily  conceived,  it  is  an  offensive  book  as  well  as 
an  unconvincing  one.  With  the  central  theme,  that 
the  narrow-mindedness  of  the  so-called  good 
woman  has  been  the  moral  ruin  of  many  a  man,  as 
surely  as  though  she  were  a  bad  woman,  I  have 
no  quarrel.    I  simply  fail  to  see  that  in  the  present 


MAY  SINCLAIR  263 

volume  Miss  Sinclair  has  chosen  a  case  that  proves 
her  contention.  Here  very  briefly  are  the  salient 
facts:  Anne  Fletcher  has  married  Walter  Ma- 
jendie  chiefly  because  she  believes  he  is  "good." 
The  fact  that  he  is  not  "  good,"  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  episode  of  his  entanglement  with  Lady 
Cayley  is  still,  after  seven  years,  an  unforgotten 
local  scandal,  is  a  matter  which  Walter's  invalid 
sister,  Edith,  has  promised  to  break  to  Anne  be- 
fore the  wedding ;  but  Edith  fails  to  keep  her  prom- 
ise, and  Anne's  enlightenment  comes  with  cruel 
suddenness  through  a  bit  of  gossip  overheard  on 
her  honeymoon.  Now,  Anne  is  a  young  woman  who 
is  physically  cold  and  unresponsive,  but  capable  of 
a  religious  exaltation  that  is  almost  sensual. 
When  her  belief  in  Walter's  "  goodness  "  is  shat- 
tered, she  seriously  questions  whether  his  lapse 
from  virtue,  seven  years  ago,  does  not  release  her 
from  her  obligations  as  a  wife,  but  finally  takes 
great  credit  for  deciding  that  although  "  things 
can  never  be  as  they  were  between  them,"  she  will 
nevertheless  "  try  to  be  a  good  wife  to  him."  Now, 
up  to  this  point,  we  have  good  material  for  an 
interesting  and  not  too  unusual  situation.  The 
woman  with  an  exaggerated  conscience  and  a  dor- 
mant temperament,  the  woman  who,  knowing  noth- 
ing about  the  masculine  nature,  demands  that  he 
shall  be  judged  and  disciplined  according  to  her 
standards,  is  a  sufficiently  common  type ;  and  when 


264  MAY  SINCLAIR 

she  does  not  happen  to  marry  her  rector,  or  the 
curate  or  Sunday-school  superintendent,  it  is  more 
than  likely  that,  from  sheer  force  of  contrast,  her 
choice  will  be  a  man  whose  philosophy  of  life  is 
more  indulgent  than  her  own.  The  trouble  with 
Miss  Sinclair  is  that  she  has  very  much  overdrawn 
her  element  of  contrast.  Walter  Majendie  is  not 
merely  more  indulgent  toward  himself  and  his  fel- 
low men, — and  women, — but  he  is  altogether  of 
coarser  clay,  a  man  lacking  in  the  finer  sense  of 
honor,  a  man  who  is  not  altogether  a  "  bounder," 
nor  wholly  a  cad,  yet  possessing  a  kinship  to  both. 
He  has  an  ill-timed  levity, — an  "  appalling  flip- 
pancy," is  her  name  for  it, — that  leads  him  into 
disastrous  irreverence.  When,  on  her  birthday,  he 
offers  her  an  antique  silver  crucifix,  and  she  hesi- 
tates to  accept  it,  because  "  to  accept  that  gift,  of 
all  gifts,  was  to  lay  her  spirit  under  obligation  to 
him,"  he  is  so  lacking  in  intelligence,  so  hopelessly 
out  of  touch  with  her  mood,  as  to  ask : 


"  Are  you  not  going  to  take  it,  then  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Do  you  realize  that  you  are  giving 
me  a  very  sacred  thing?  " 

"I  do." 

"  And  that  I  can't  treat  it  as  I  would  an  ordinary 
present?  " 

He  lowered  his  eyes.  "  I  didn't  think  you'd  want 
to  wear  it  in  your  hair,  dear." 


MAY  SINCLAIR  265 

When  on  another  occasion,  he  accompanies  her 
to  Lenten  Service,  he  asks  her,  as  they  emerge 
into  the  open  air,  "  Did  you  like  it?  " 

He  spoke  as  if  to  the  child  she  seemed  to  him 
now  to  be.  They  had  been  playing  together,  pretend- 
ing they  were  two  pilgrims  bound  for  the  Heavenly 
City,  and  he  wanted  to  know  if  she  had  had  a  nice 
game.  He  nursed  the  exquisite  illusion  that  this  time 
he  had  pleased  her  by  playing  too. 

But  his  lack  of  reverence,  his  fundamental  in- 
ability to  respect  her  mood,  even  if  he  could  not 
share  her  faith,  is  as  nothing  compared  with  his 
extraordinary  acceptance  of  social  complications 
that  any  man  of  refined  perceptions  would  have 
realized  to  be  intolerable.  It  is  his  misfortune,  if 
not  his  fault,  that  his.  chosen  circle  of  friends  is 
a  bit  lower  in  the  social  scale  than  that  of  his 
wife.  To  complicate  matters  further,  one  or  two 
of  his  closest  friends  are  men  whose  past,  and  pres- 
ent, too,  are  not  beyond  reproach.  They  are  men 
whom  Anne's  sanctimonious  little  circle  rigorously 
exclude.  Yet,  considering  that  one  of  them  in  par- 
ticular, a  certain  Mr.  Gorse,  is  the  man  whom  her 
sister-in-law,  Edith  Majendie,  would  have  married, 
but  for  the  obscure  spinal  trouble  that  came  upon 
her  ten  years  ago,  that  Edith  knows  Gorse's  human 
weaknesses,  and,  like  the  big-souled  woman  that 
she  is,  understands  and  forgives  them,  and  that 


266  MAY  SINCLAIR 

the  only  real  joy  Gorse  knows  is  his  occasional 
calls  at  the  Majendie  home, — considering  all  this, 
it  would   have   been   more   magnanimous    if  Anne 
could  have  brought  herself  to  extend  a  little  Chris- 
tian charity  and  show  a  simple  civility  to  her  hus- 
band's   friend.      Instead,    she    refuses    to    receive 
either  Gorse  or  any  of  the  circle  to  which  he  be- 
longs ;  and,   as  her  husband  sees   nothing  incon- 
gruous in  having  them  at  the  house  for  dinner  on 
an  average  of  once  a  week,  the  wife  finds  herself 
driven  into  begging  the  hospitality  of  one  or  an- 
other of  her  own  friends,  in  order  to  avoid  meet- 
ing her  husband's  guests.     People  simply  do  not 
do  such  things ;  and  one  does  not  know  which  to 
wonder  at  the  more,  the  husband  who  would  thus 
force  his  wife  away  from  home,  or  the  guests  who 
would    accept    invitations    in    her    absence.      But 
stranger  things  are  to  come.     Lady  Cayley,  the 
woman  who  seven  years  ago  almost  wrecked  Ma- 
jendie's  life,  and  was  bought  off  at  such  a  heavy 
cost  that  Majendie  has  not  yet  been  able  to  pay 
back  the  friend  from  whom  he  borrowed  it,  unex- 
pectedly returns  to  town,  is  forgiven  and  received 
by  her  relatives,  and  actually  encounters  her  for- 
mer lover  and  his  wife  at  an  afternoon  tea.    A  man 
with  decent  instincts  would  have  been  keenly  alive 
to  the  humiliation  such  a  meeting  inflicted  on  his 
wife,  even  though  she  was  spared  a  personal  intro- 
duction.    But  Walter  tactlessly  allows  himself  to 


MAY  SINCLAIR  26? 

chat  and  laugh  with  Lady  Cayley  for  some  min- 
utes ;  and  when  he  and  his  wife  are  home  once  more 
and  she  very  naturally  demands  that  he  shall  give 
up  visiting  at  houses  where  he  is  likely  to  meet  his 
former  mistress,  he  stares  in  amazement  and  re- 
fuses : 

"  I  can't  promise  anything  of  the  sort.  Heaven 
knows  how  long  she  is  going  to  stay." 

"  I  ought  not  to  have  to  explain  that  by  counte- 
nancing her  you  insult  me.  You  should  see  it  for 
yourself." 

"  I  can't  see  it.  In  the  first  place,  with  all  due 
regard  to  you,  I  don't  insult  you  by  countenancing 
her,  as  you  call  it.  In  the  second  place,  I  don't 
countenance  her  by  going  to  other  people's  houses. 
If  I  went  to  her  house,  you  might  complain.  She 
hasn't  got  a  house,  poor  lady." 

The  man  is  hopeless.  That  is  the  book's  chief 
and  pervading  weakness.  The  author  wants  us  to 
espouse  her  hero's  cause,  and  instead,  with  almost 
everything  he  says  or  does,  he  alienates  our  sym- 
pathy. Of  course,  a  marriage  so  ill-assorted  is 
bound  to  turn  out  disastrously ;  but  the  stumbling- 
block  will  not  be  a  youthful  error  long  since  ex- 
piated ;  it  will  be  the  intolerable  contact  with  little 
daily  vulgarisms,  the  hourly  verbal  clumsiness,  the 
monumental  incapacity  to  understand  the  finer  and 
subtler  temperament  of  the  woman.     The  under- 


268  MAY  SINCLAIR 

lying  idea  of  the  book  is  undeniably  big ;  the  situa- 
tion at  the  end  of  ten  years  of  marriage  that  has 
been  a  mockery  of  the  word  is  poignant  with 
tragedy.  The  inevitable  has  happened ;  after  the 
birth  of  her  child  the  wife  has  tacitly  claimed  her 
freedom ;  the  husband  has  been  patient, — but 
patience  has  its  limits,  and  for  the  last  three  of 
these  ten  years  there  has  been  another  woman,  es- 
tablished in  a  snug  little  country  house,  who  does 
her  best  to  make  up  to  him  for  the  emptiness  and 
disillusion  of  his  home  life.  Then  comes  a  night 
when  his  only  child,  a  frail  little  creature  with  a 
weak  heart,  awakes  from  a  vivid  dream,  declaring 
her  father  dead,  and  cries  and  sobs  ceaselessly,  re- 
fusing to  be  comforted, — until  the  strain  is  too 
much  for  the  feeble  heart,  and  she  sobs  herself 
into  her  final  rest.  To  the  wife  there  comes,  simul- 
taneously with  this  loss,  the  knowledge  of  the  other 
woman,  the  knowledge  that  it  was  because  he  had 
gone  to  see  that  other  woman  that  he  had  been  ab- 
sent when  his  presence  might  have  saved  the  child's 
life, — in  short,  as  her  disordered  fancy  conceives 
it,  that  he  is  virtually  the  child's  murderer.  And 
this  she  tells  him  brutally,  lashing  him  with  her 
scorn.  Now,  an  absurd  charge  of  this  sort  is  not 
in  itself  sufficient  to  bring  on  an  attack  of  apo- 
plexy; but  the  man  has  been  under  a  strain  for 
years ;  he  is  cut  to  the  heart  by  the  irremediable 
naiure  of  the  double  loss.    And  as  he  lies  hovering 


MAY  SINCLAIR  269 

between  life  and  death,  the  woman  has  long  hours 
in  which  to  learn  her  own  narrowness,  long  hours 
in  which  to  repeat  over  and  over  the  words  of  Lady 
Cayley,  whom  she  scorned  and  who  has  ventured  to 
tell  her  the  truth: 

"  Look  at  it  this  way.  He  has  kept  all  his  mar- 
riage vows — except  one.  You  have  broken  all  yours 
— except  one.  None  of  your  friends  will  tell  you 
that.  That's  why  J  tell  you.  Because  I'm  not  a  good 
woman,  and  I  don't  count." 

It  is  because  this  situation  is  so  big  in  possi- 
bilities, and  the  principle  involved  so  vital  an  issue 
in  hundreds  of  marriages,  that  it  is  hard  to  pardon 
Miss  Sinclair  her  amazing  lack  of  perception  in 
blurring  the  issue  by  the  needless  complications  of 
a  special  case,  and  narrowing  down  to  a  mere  lack 
of  breeding  a  question  that  ought  to  have  hinged 
upon  the  relative  magnitude  of  two  souls. 

The  Immortal  Moment,  while  far  slighter  in 
scope  and  significance  than  The  Helpmate,  is 
artistically  a  much  finer  piece  of  workmanship.  It 
is  seldom  that  a  story  brings  to  the  reviewer  such 
a  sense  of  impotence  to  do  it  justice  within  the 
space  of  a  single  paragraph.  One  can,  of  course, 
assert  its  admirable  technique,  its  rare  truth  of 
characterization ;  its  logical  analytical  develop- 
ment ;  but  mere  assertion,  no  matter  how  emphatic, 


270  MAY  SINCLAIR 

lacks  convincing  power.  What  Miss  Sinclair's 
book  deserves  is  a  detailed  and  painstaking  anal- 
ysis of  the  kind  that  takes  much  time  and  space. 
For,  after  all,  stripped  to  its  bare  skeleton,  The 
Immortal  Moment  seems  a  curiously  inadequate 
framework  upon  which  to  fashion  a  story  of  any 
considerable  magnitude.  It  amounts  to  little  more 
than  this :  Kitty  Tailleur  is  a  sort  of  English 
Dame  aux  Cornelias,  who  is  spending  a  few  weeks 
in  a  fashionable  hotel  at  an  English  seaside  resort. 
Owing  to  the  absence  of  the  man  whose  pocket- 
book  pays  her  bills,  it  is  not  strange  that  a  clean- 
souled,  big-hearted,  honorable  nature  such  as  Rob- 
ert Lucy,  meeting  her  in  the  casual  way  in  which 
one  meets  fellow-guests  at  a  hotel,  should  mistake 
her  for  what  she  is  not;  and,  supplementing  his 
mistake  by  a  graver  one,  should  fall  in  love  with  her 
and  ask  her  to  be  his  wife  and  a  second  mother  to 
his  orphan  child.  Kitty  Tailleur  is  not  in  the  least 
an  idealized  character ;  she  is  quite  frankly  pic- 
tured with  the  faults  and  limitations  of  her  class — 
the  love  of  show,  the  thirst  for  admiration,  the 
insincerity,  the  imperious  craving  for  emotions. 
But  it  happens  that  for  the  first  time  in  her  life 
she  has  learned  the  meaning  of  an  honest,  disin- 
terested love.  Had  she  not  loved  Robert  Lucy 
she  would  have  run  the  risk  of  future  discovery ; 
but  because  of  this  love  she  cannot  bring  herself 
to  conceal  her  unworthiness  from  him.    And  after 


MAY  SINCLAIR  271 

she  has  owned  the  truth  and  he  has  decided  that 
for  his  child's  sake,  if  not  for  his  own,  marriage 
between  them  is  impossible,  she  not  only  acquiesces 
in  his  verdict,  but  adds  to  it  by  the  supreme  sacri- 
fice of  her  "  immortal  moment,"  the  seal  of  finality 
that  comes  with  death.  But  the  art  of  this  story 
depends  far  less  upon  the  substance  than  upon  the 
manner  of  the  telling.  Throughout  the  greater 
portion  of  it  the  reader  knows  no  more  than  the 
man  who  loves  her  what  manner  of  woman  she  is. 
We  hear  the  current  gossip  of  the  hotel  corridors, 
the  jealous  slurs  of  women,  the  over-bold  admira- 
tion of  men,  the  stanch  support  of  the  few  who 
really  like  her.  In  other  words,  the  reader  is 
placed  in  a  position  to  see  Kitty  Tailleur  from  the 
standpoint  of  Robert  Lucy  and  to  hear  and  sur- 
mise what  Robert  Lucy  might  have  heard  and  sur- 
mised— with  this  advantage,  however,  that  the 
average  reader  is  somewhat  more  worldly-wise 
than  Mr.  Lucy,  and  therefore  in  a  position  to  dis- 
cover for  himself  the  truth  which  the  lover  scarcely 
credits,  even  after  hearing  it  with  brutal  frank- 
ness from  the  woman's  own  lips. 

Yet  nothing  that  has  been  said  in  the  preceding 
pages  alters  the  fact  that  Miss  Sinclair  first  be- 
came a  figure  of  importance  in  contemporary  fic- 
tion upon  the  appearance  of  The  Divine  Fire,  and 
that  without  it  her  importance  to-day  would  be,  if 
not  negligible,  at  least  greatly  diminished.    In  that 


n%  MAY  SINCLAIR 

one  book  at  least  she  arose  to  rare  heights.  It  is 
one  of  those  big,  manj'-sided,  kaleidoscopic  books 
which  paint  metropolitan  life,  the  good  and  the 
bad  together,  with  bold,  sweeping  brush-strokes, — 
the  sort  of  book  which  it  is  almost  as  hard  for  a 
woman  to  achieve  as  it  is  for  a  woman  to  compose 
a  symphony.  The  impression  that  you  bring  away 
from  The  Divine  Fire  is,  first  of  all,  an  impression 
of  a  multitude  of  human  beings,  and  at  the  same 
time  not  an  impression  of  a  crowd, — because,  in  a 
crowd,  few  faces  stand  out  distinct  from  the  rest, 
while  in  The  Divine  Fire  there  is  a  host  of  faces, 
every  one  of  which  you  recognize  because  they  are 
so  carefully  and  admirably  individualized.  The 
picture  is  painted  on  a  wide  canvas ;  and  there  is 
no  mistaking  the  assured  touch  with  which  the 
seamy  side  of  journalistic  and  Bohemian  London 
are  flung  before  us.  It  is  the  London  of  Grub 
Street  and  Torrington  Square ;  the  London  of 
newspaper  and  magazine  offices,  of  old  bookshops 
and  second-rate  lodging  houses,  of  cheap  theaters 
and  cheaper  music  halls.  Back  of  this  tawdry  and 
penurious  under-world  we  glimpse,  faintly  at  first, 
then  more  and  more  clearly,  paths  leading  upward 
and  onward,  into  the  clearer,  more  spacious  realm 
of  art  and  letters,  fame  and  fortune.  More  spe- 
cifically, the  book  is  the  life  history  of  two  men; 
the  one,  an  impeccable  classicist,  a  stern,  uncom- 
promising censor  of  public  taste  in  literature  and 


MAY  SINCLAIR  273 

art ;  the  other,  a  man  lacking  in  breeding,  in 
culture,  in  all  the  essentials  of  a  gentleman  and 
a  scholar,  but  endowed  with  one  heaven-born  gift, 
the  gift  of  poetry, — and  the  history  of  these  two 
lives  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  sale  of  a  birthright 
for  a  mess  of  pottage,  and  on  the  other,  the 
apotheosis  of  a  poet.  Savage  Keith  Rickman  is  a 
true  Cockney  in  every  bone  and  fiber ;  he  was  born 
and  bred  amid  the  dust  of  old  books ;  and  even  the 
classical  course  in  the  University  of  London  could 
not  eradicate  certain  vulgarisms  of  habit  and 
speech  and  manner,  could  not  make  him  certain  of 
putting  his  aitches  unerringly  in  the  right  place. 
Furthermore,  he  is  handicapped  by  an  instinct  for 
sharp  bargains,  inherited  from  his  trickster  father, 
old  Isaac  Rickman.  In  short,  he  is  not  a  gentle- 
man, in  the  accepted  meaning  of  the  term, — but 
whether  he  is  something  a  little  less  than  a  gen- 
tleman, or  something  a  little  more,  is  a  question 
which  those  who  know  him  best  are  not  in  undue 
haste  to  answer.  Curiously  enough,  in  the  soul  of 
this  apparently  insignificant  Cockney  clerk  a 
spark  of  the  divine  flame  is  smoldering.  It  has  al- 
ready flared  up  once  or  twice,  in  a  burst  that  is 
almost  genius  in  certain  audacious  Saturnalia,  and 
in  the  opening  acts  of  a  wonderful  symbolic  drama, 
Helen  in  Leuce.  Yet  the  flame,  even  at  its  bright- 
est, has  not  as  yet  leaped  very  high  above  the 
earth.    His  Cockney  streak  is  still  uppermost ;  he 


274  MAY  SINCLAIR 

looks   upon   the  throngs   of  women,   who   nightly 
frequent   Piccadilly    Circus,    abstractedly   as    "a 
luminous,  passionate  nocturne  of  the  streets  " ;  his 
ideal  of  womanhood  has  not  risen  above  the  level 
of  Poppy   Grace,  a  very   ordinary   little  variety 
actress,  who  has  sung  her  way  into  popular  favor 
with  cheap  music  hall  ditties,  and  twirls  blithely 
on   twinkling  toes.      Young   Rickman   makes   her 
acquaintance  through  the  informal  medium  of  ad- 
joining balconies;  and  the  nature  of  their  friend- 
ship is  conveyed  in  terms  which,  although  euphe- 
mistic, are  unmistakable.     But  a  momentous  day 
comes  when  Rickman  is  sent  into  the  country  to 
catalogue   and   appraise   a   priceless   old   library, 
which  his  father,  through  unscrupulous  dealings, 
is   about  to  acquire  for  a  mere  song.     Until  he 
arrives  at  the  old  hall,  he  has  never  heard  of  the 
existence  of  Lucia  Harden,  whose  father  owns  the 
library;  nor  has  he  been   aware  of  the  peculiar 
complication  regarding  the  library  itself.     Lucia 
is  one  of  those  rare  women  with  a  love  for  books, 
and  a  passion  for  classic  learning.     It  is  her  own 
idea    to    have    this    library    catalogued,    and    she 
means    to   pay    the    cost    out   of   certain   private 
funds,  and  have  the  catalogue  ready  as  a  surprise 
for  her  father,  when  he   returns   from   the   Con- 
tinent.    But  it  happens  that  Sir  Frederick  Har- 
den,  unknown  to  his   daughter,  has   lost   a   very 
substantial  part  of  his  fortune  at  Monte  Carlo, 


MAY  SINCLAIR  275 

and  has  mortgaged  his  library  for  less  than  quar- 
ter its  value,  and  old  Isaac  Rickman  has  secured 
an  option  from  the  mortgagee.  Now,  Lucia  Har- 
den, beautiful,  cultured,  and  of  fine  old  race,  is 
the  first  good,  pure  woman  that  Keith  Rickman 
has  ever  known,  and  she  dawns  upon  his  bewildered 
senses  as  a  herald  of  a  new  life,  an  inspiration  that 
will  lead  him  upward  to  heights  unguessed.  Had 
he  been  a  gentleman,  instead  of  something  less, — 
or  something  more, — Rickman  would  have  known 
at  once  the  impossibility  of  remaining  at  Harden 
Hall,  working  day  and  night,  side  by  side  with 
Lucia  Harden,  and  aware  all  the  time  that  he  is 
in  a  certain  sense  helping  to  defraud  her.  When 
he  finally  does  realize  what  his  duty  is,  and  pre- 
pares to  tell  her  the  truth,  he  is  too  late ;  her 
father  has  died  suddenly,  at  Cannes,  the  mortgage 
has  been  foreclosed,  and  the  Harden  library  has 
passed  into  the  greedy  grasp  of  Rickman  the  elder. 
This  sequence  of  events,  bringing  with  them  a  tem- 
porary belief  on  the  part  of  Lucia  Harden  that 
Keith  has  been  guilty  of  unpardonable  duplicity, 
although  it  causes  a  long  estrangement  between 
them,  is  the  beginning  of  the  poet's  regeneration, 
his  emancipation  from  his  bondage,  his  gradual 
conquest  over  heredity  and  environment  and  his 
earlier  self.  The  first  step  is  his  permanent  break 
with  his  father,  his  departure  from  the  classical 
section  of  the  old  book  shop,  where  he  has  so  long 


276  MAY  SINCLAIR 

been  a  familiar  figure,  and  his  appraisal  accepted 
as  the  final  word.  Instead,  he  enters  on  the  pre- 
carious path  of  journalism,  picking  up  a  pittance 
here  and  there  for  a  sonnet,  an  editorial,  a  para- 
graph of  criticism,  and  emigrating  from  second 
floor  front  to  third  floor  back,  thence  to  a  garret, 
and  then  back  again  to  second,  in  accordance 
with  the  weekly  ebb  and  flow  of  fortune. 

Meanwhile  there  is  a  second  leading  figure  in 
the  book,  who  is  glimpsed  but  seldom  during  the 
earlier  chapters,  because  his  social  position  makes 
him  a  stranger  to  the  sphere  in  which  Rickman  has 
hitherto  moved.  Horace  Jewdwine  is  an  Oxford 
Don,  developing  into  a  London  journalist.  "  You 
divined  that  the  process  would  be  slow;  there  was 
no  unseemly  haste  about  Jewdwine."  Academic 
is  a  pale,  inefficient  word  to  apply  to  Jewdwine, 
to  his  critical  taste,  to  his  manner  of  speech,  his 
written  prose.  He  exhales  the  higher  culture  as 
he  moves ;  his  conversation  is  as  formally  classic  as 
an  Elgin  marble.  His  highest  ambition  is  to  found 
a  review  of  literature  and  art  that  shall  be  im- 
peccable, the  recognized  court  of  last  resort  in 
criticism.  Now,  it  happens  that  Jewdwine  is  own 
cousin  of  Lucia  Harden,  that  he  dreams  in  a 
vague,  noncommittal  way  of  one  day  marrying  her, 
provided  he  can  bring  himself  to  sacrifice  his 
bachelor  freedom;  and  meanwhile,  being  aware  of 
Rickman's   interest   in   Lucia   and   of  their  tern- 


MAY  SINCLAIR  277 

porary  estrangement,  it  suits  his  purpose  to 
manoeuver  to  keep  them  apart  and  to  salve  his 
own  conscience  by  offering  Rickman  the  position 
of  sub-editor  on  his  newly  founded  review,  The 
Museion.  To  trace  the  subsequent  steps  by  which 
the  Cockney  poet  climbs  upward  and  onward, 
sacrificing  one  worldly  prospect  after  another,  in 
his  one  fixed  purpose  to  refine  the  pure  gold  of 
his  own  soul,  to  redeem  his  honor,  and  through 
slaving  drudgery,  sickness  and  starvation,  win 
back  the  library  he  was  instrumental  in  helping  to 
steal,  and  lay  it  at  Lucia  Harden's  feet  as  a 
tangible  evidence  of  atonement, — to  tell  all  this 
in  detail  would  mean  to  rewrite  inadequately  a 
story  already  so  superbly  written  that  one  reads 
it  with  an  eagerness  that  is  almost  pain,  all  uncon- 
scious of  its  most  unusual  and  formidable  length. 
And  Jewdwine,  too,  and  his  slow  but  inevitable 
degeneration,  form  a  chapter  too  extensive  to 
epitomize  in  detail.  Here  again  is  a  superb  piece 
of  work, — merciless,  too,  in  the  incisive  irony  of 
the  picture  it  draws  of  a  man's  self-deception,  his 
almost  unconscious  yielding  to  the  pressure  of  ex- 
pediency, until  he  is  almost  the  only  person  left 
who  is  unaware  that  his  review  is  hopelessly  com- 
mercialized and  his  own  critical  opinions  a  mar- 
ketable commodity.  And  in  the  end,  when  he  looks 
into  his  own  soul  and  awakes  to  a  realization  of 
its  pettiness,  he  has  not  manhood  enough  left  to  be 


278  MAY  SINCLAIR 

generous  and  wish  his  rival  god-speed  in  his  wooing 
of  the  woman  Jewdwine  has  forever  lost, — but  in- 
stead he  must  play  a  dog-in-the-manger's  part, 
and  by  a  dastardly  trick  try  to  block  the  marriage 
between  Keith  and  Lucia,  a  trick  that  falls  to  the 
ground  and  sputters  out  impotently,  because  the 
poet's  soul  has  reached  that  rare  height  in  which 
love  is  refined  of  all  dross  and  self  is  obliterated. 
These  are  some  of  the  things  that  Miss  Sinclair 
has  achieved  in  this  rather  wonderful  book.  And 
she  has  done  one  thing  more, — and  as  a  sheer  mat- 
ter of  craftsmanship,  the  most  wonderful  of  all; 
she  has  shown  us  a  genius,  one  of  the  finest  and 
rarest  sort,  and  she  has  convinced  us  that  he  is  all 
she  claims  for  him ;  she  has  succeeded  in  making 
him  plausible,  she  has  even  ventured  upon  the  su- 
preme audacity  of  showing  us  fugitive  specimens 
of  his  verse,  and  yet  escapes  an  anti-climax.  Sav- 
age Keith  Rickman  lives  so  firmly  in  our  memory 
as  an  English  poet  of  the  first  magnitude  that  it 
would  not  be  at  all  surprising,  indeed,  it  would 
seem  in  a  way  a  merited  tribute  to  the  novelist's 
genius,  if  more  than  one  absent-minded  reader 
should  search  for  the  name  of  Rickman  in  anthol- 
ogies of  English  verse. 

These  are  the  reasons  why  it  is  difficult  to  dis- 
cuss Miss  Sinclair's  other  volumes  more  than  half- 
heartedly, why  it  has  seemed  best  to  omit  some  of 
them  altogether  from  discussion.    They  suffer  too 


MAY  SINCLAIR  279 

much  from  contrast.  One  by  one,  they  add  their 
cumulative  evidence  to  the  growing  conviction  that 
The  Divine  Fire  is  likely  to  enjoy  permanently  its 
isolated  splendor  among  Miss  Sinclair's  contribu- 
tions to  fiction. 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

With  the  single  and  obvious  exception  of  Mr. 
Kipling,  it  would  be  difficult  to  cite  any  other  con- 
temporary writer  of  English  fiction  who  has  at- 
tained such  striking  success  as  that  of  Mr.  Alfred 
Ollivant  in  three  forms  of  endeavor  differing  so 
widely  as  those  represented  severally  by  Bob,  Son 
of  Battle,  Redcoat  Captain  and  The  Gentleman. 
To  the  host  of  friends  whom  he  won  by  his  strong 
and  tender  story  of  a  dog  who  was  a  gentleman 
if  a  dog  ever  was  one,  it  began  to  seem,  as  the 
years  went  by,  that  Mr.  Ollivant  was  destined  to  be 
numbered  among  the  authors  of  a  single  book. 
And  when  a  few  years  later  a  second  dog  story, 
Danny,  was  barely  given  to  the  public  before  being 
withdrawn  by  the  author  as  a  piece  of  work  to 
which  he  could  not  give  his  sanction,  the  impres- 
sion was  strengthened  that  he  was  not  likely  again 
to  be  heard  from.  Contrary  to  expectation,  after 
another  lengthy  silence,  he  surprised  his  public 
by  producing  within  the  space  of  a  single  year  two 
volumes  that,  each  in  its  own  way,  stand  very 
close  to  the  elusive  border-line  of  genius.  One 
other  volume,  The  Taming  of  John  Blunt,  subse- 

280 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  281 

quently  found  its  way  into  print,  and  there  is  still 
another  which,  when  the  day  of  its  publication 
arrives,  is  likely  to  bring  its  author  high  com- 
mendation as  an  interpreter  of  certain  humble 
Cockney  types  and  to  win  him  comparison  with 
analogous  works  from  the  pens  of  De  Morgan  and 
Galsworthy. 

There  are  some  novelists,  probably  the  majority 
of  those  who  really  count,  from  whose  blunders 
almost  as  much  may  be  learned  as  from  their  suc- 
cesses. It  is  possible  to  look  back  over  their  record 
and  to  see  how,  step  by  step,  they  learn  to  outgrow 
certain  failings,  to  avoid  certain  errors,  to  do  a 
particular  kind  of  thing  over  again,  and  to  do  it 
better.  Mr.  Ollivant  is  not  one  of  this  class.  He 
can  do  only  the  thing  which,  for  the  time  being, 
holds  him,  heart  and  soul.  When  he  blunders  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  going  back  and  doing  it  over. 
He  discards  that  particular  type  once  for  all,  and 
passes  on  to  something  new,  something  in  which 
his  past  achievements  and  failures  have  scant  in- 
fluence one  way  or  the  other.  For  this  reason 
there  would  be  small  profit  in  spending  time  or 
space  upon  the  two  volumes  which  are  admittedly 
inferior  work.  The  primary  purpose  of  the  pres- 
ent study  is  to  justify  the  contention  that  Mr. 
Ollivant  is  one  of  the  most  original  writers  of  his 
generation ;  and  the  best  proof  of  this  lies  in  the 
three  volumes  which  are  now  to  be  successively  ex- 


282  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

amined  and  among  which  it  is  difficult  to  award  the 
palm  for  uniqueness. 

Of  Bob,  Son  of  Battle,  very  nearly  the  last  word 
has  been  said,  not  once,  but  many  times,  by  other 
critics  ;  it  is  one  of  those  rarely  fortunate  books  re- 
garding which  the  verdict  of  criticism  and  of  the 
general  public  coincided  in  giving  it  very  nearly  its 
just  due.  The  animal  story,  if  we  include  within 
this  term  the  Beast  Fable,  is  a  type  of  fiction  which 
has  come  down  from  the  unrecorded  darkness  of 
antiquity ;  and  through  the  skilled  magic  of  Mr. 
Kipling,  the  type  has  taken  a  new  lease  of  life  in 
the  Jungle  Books  and  the  Just-So  Stories.  But 
in  these  coldly  practical  days,  when  science  is  ruth- 
lessly elbowing  the  classics  out  of  our  universities, 
we  have  learned  to  make  even  our  animal  stories 
scientific ;  and  we  have  as  a  result  the  tales  of  Mr. 
Thompson-Seton,  the  best  of  which  are  zoological 
monographs,  and  the  worst,  good  examples  of  that 
type  of  pseudo-psychology  popularly  known  as  the 
nature  fake.  Besides  these  two  main  divisions 
there  is  a  wide-spread  class  of  novel  and  short 
story,  in  which  the  chief  character  is  a  dog  or  a 
horse  through  whose  eyes  a  certain  series  of  human 
episodes  are  witnessed  and  a  certain  effect  of 
irony,  a  certain  criticism  of  life,  is  gained  by  ac- 
cepting the  canine  or  equine  point  of  view.  Such 
books  are  of  all  periods  and  of  all  degrees  of  merit, 
from  The  Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius  to  Ouida's  Puck, 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  283 

from  that  widely  popular  piece  of  sentimentality, 
Black  Beauty,  to  Richard  Harding  Davis's  bit  of 
real  artistry,  The  Bar  Sinister.  And,  of  course, 
any  one  whose  reading  in  fiction  has  been  at  all 
liberal  will  be  able  to  cite  many  a  story  in  which 
some  dumb  animal  has  played  a  more  or  less  sig- 
nificant part.  They  range  all  the  way  from  a 
casual  intrusion  such  as  that  of  Binkie,  who  was 
"  an  omen,"  in  The  Light  That  Failed,  to  Buck, 
who  pretty  nearly  fills  the  whole  canvas,  in  The 
Call  of  the  Wild.  But  even  with  all  these  different 
types  clearly  in  mind,  there  need  be  no  hesitation 
in  affirming  that  Mr.  Ollivant's  Bob,  Son  of  Battle, 
is  not  merely  the  best  realistic  story  of  animal  life, 
but  the  only  one.  While  we  read  it,  all  others 
simply  do  not  exist. 

The  specific  story  of  Owd  Bob,  the  last  of  the 
Grey  Dogs  of  Kenmure,  and  his  life-long  feud  with 
Red  Wullic,  the  Tailless  Tyke,  does  not  lend  itself 
well  to  a  brief  retelling.  So  much  of  its  strength 
lies  in  the  careful  etching-like  detail,  the  soft  grays 
and  browns  of  lowering  sky  and  far-stretching 
moor  ;  much,  also,  in  the  slow,  persistent  accumula- 
tion of  traits  of  character,  little  miracles  of  ob- 
servation that  by  their  progressive  upbuilding  give 
birth  to  a  little  group  of  dogs  and  of  men  that  are 
perhaps  more  alive  in  their  material  existence  of 
ink  and  paper,  and  more  likely  to  go  on  living, 
than    many    another    who    actually    moves    and 


284  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

breathes.  Of  James  Moore,  the  big,  brawny,  phleg- 
matic and  long-suffering  master  of  Bob,  and  of 
Adam  M'Adam,  the  undersized,  shrunken  wisp  of 
humanity,  with  the  disposition  of  a  devil  in  whom 
there  still  smolders  a  spark  of  tenderness,  there  is 
no  purpose  in  speaking  here  at  any  length.  The 
whole  plot  of  the  book  is  too  thin,  too  skeleton- 
like to  be  set  forth  at  second  hand  without  danger 
of  ruthlessly  spoiling  it.  Viewed  dispassionately, 
apart  from  the  contagious  magic  of  Alfred  Olli- 
vant's  matchless  narrative,  the  whole  thing  nar- 
rows down  to  this :  We  have  two  sheep-dogs,  each 
a  prize-winner  because  of  his  peculiar  prowess  in 
driving  his  flock ;  each  hating  the  other  with  a 
hatred  controlled  only  by  the  respective  attitudes 
of  their  masters ;  and  little  by  little  the  convic- 
tion spreads  that  one  of  these  two  dogs  has  been 
guilty  of  the  one  unpardonable  crime  a  sheep-dog 
may  commit, — that  of  killing  sheep.  A  matter, 
you  see,  of  a  few  throats  opened,  a  few  pounds  of 
mutton  spoiled  for  the  market  in  a  little  jumpjng- 
off  place  on  the  world's  surface ;  a  few  farmers 
out  of  pocket,  and,  in  the  end,  a  village  well  rid  of 
a  bad  dog.  But,  what  Mr.  Ollivant  has  actually 
done  is  so  vastly  different  from  all  this :  under  his 
touch  the  outside  world  drops  away  and  the 
spreading  acres  of  farm  and  pasture  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Muir  Pike  dominate  the  whole  pic- 
ture.     In   the   personalities   of  two   dogs   he   has 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  285 

worked  out  certain  eternal  verities;  has  pictured 
over  again  the  unending  battle  between  good  and 
evil,  fought  out  in  the  blackness  of  night  between 
the  immensities  of  earth  and  sky.  The  big  scene 
of  the  book,  in  which  at  last  Red  Wullie  is  caught, 
vampire-like,  at  his  hideous  feast,  with  the  shud- 
dering, cowering  flock  standing  as  dumb  witnesses, 
and  Owd  Bob  looming  up  beside  him  like  an  aveng- 
ing fate,  is  beyond  all  praise  in  its  tragic  sim- 
plicity, superbly  elemental,  almost  Homeric.  It  is 
no  small  task  to  take  a  couple  of  dogs  and  make 
them  stand  as  symbols  for  the  passions  and  aspira- 
tions of  humanity;  it  is  an  even  greater  achieve- 
ment to  take  an  isolated  corner  of  Christendom,  a 
gray,  fog-haunted  bit  of  moorland,  and  make  it 
the  center  of  the  Universe,  blotting  out  the  rest, — 
and  these  things  Mr.  Ollivant  has  achieved  with 
an  almost  epic  dignity. 

Of  the  two  books  which  equally  with  Bob,  Son 
of  Battle,  merit  detailed  notice,  Redcoat  Captain, 
although  one  of  the  few  really  unique  volumes 
which  any  one  decade  gives  us,  is  perhaps  the  less 
apt  to  have  its  singular  quality  recognized.  In- 
deed, to  the  indifferent  glance  of  the  average 
reader,  the  big  print  of  its  wide  pages,  the  one- 
syllable  flavor  of  its  dialect,  the  Mother  Goose  at- 
mosphere of  its  illustrations,  betokened  merely  one 
more  attempt  to  meet  the  demand  for  holiday 
books  for  children, — and  a  none  too  successful  at- 


286  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

tempt  it  turned  out  to  be,  according  to  the  ex- 
perience of  numerous  misguided  purchasers  who 
found  that  somehow  it  failed  to  reach  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  kindergarten  age.  Of  course,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  whether  Mr.  Ollivant  himself  was 
precisely  aware  of  it  or  not,  Redcoat  Captain  is 
not  a  book  for  children,  but  a  sort  of  epitomized 
philosophy  of  life,  deliberately  written  in  the  man- 
ner of  Alice  in  Wonderland  or  the  Just-So  Stories; 
or,  to  say  the  same  thing  in  another  way,  it  con- 
tains the  essence  of  the  wisdom  of  childhood  put  up 
in  portable  doses  for  the  adult.  It  is  the  uni- 
versal and  perennial  love  story,  told  with  the  joy- 
ous irresponsibility  of  Grimm 's  Fairy  Tales.  It  re- 
minds you,  as  above  suggested,  of  the  Just-So 
Stories  and  the  next  moment  of  Mr.  Barrie's 
Little  White  Bird,  and  then  again  of  no  one  in  the 
world  but  Mr.  Ollivant  himself.  A  good  many 
readers  will  doubtless  frankly  take  issue  with 
this  opinion  and  lay  the  book  aside  in  hopeless  be- 
wilderment. Yet  the  effort  to  understand  its  ten- 
der symbolism  is  eminently  worth  while,  not  merely 
because  the  inherent  romance  of  love  and  youth 
has  seldom  been  treated  with  such  freedom  from 
all  that  is  conventional,  but  because  it  contains 
the  key  to  the  right  of  entry  into  "  That  Country," 
the  country  of  those  who  have  learned  to  remain 
young  in  heart  and  to  look  upon  life  with  the  frank 
serenity  of  little  children.    The  book  merits  a  little 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  287 

patient  effort  to  understand  it,  and  I  urgently 
recommend  some  effort  in  its  behalf.  You  will  un- 
doubtedly read  it  at  first  in  a  state  of  dazed  in- 
comprehension, telling  yourself  that  if  this  is  a 
book  attuned  to  the  understanding  of  childhood, 
you  must  suddenly  have  grown  very  old  indeed. 
You  read  it  a  second  time,  and  here  and  there  you 
catch  sudden  sunlight  flashes  of  meaning  through 
the  prevailing  fog  of  shorthand  phrasing;  but  it 
takes  at  least  three  readings  before  you  fully  catch 
the  spirit  of  it,  and  realize  with  a  growing  delight 
that  Mr.  Ollivant  has  succeeded  in  saying  almost 
the  last  word  on  many  of  the  deepest  and  tenderest 
relations  of  life,  and,  what  is  more,  saying  it  in 
long  primer  type  and  a  special  nursery  syntax  in- 
vented for  the  occasion. 

Who  else  ever  conceived  of  the  possibility  of 
breaking  into  a  love  story  with  the  following  ab- 
ruptness :  "  So,  after  waiting  faithfully  for  days 
and  days  and  days,  they  agreed  they  could 
wait  no  longer "  ?  And  who  else  would  ever 
have  had  the  delicious  impudence  of  summing 
up  the  essential  details  in  tins  stenographic 
fashion : 

She  was  between  ten  and  twenty;  He  was  a  little 
more. 

He  was  so  tall  that  the  Fellows  called  him  Tiny; 
her  name  was  Mabel,  so  they  called  her  Baby. 


288  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

At  this  point  a  reviewer  suddenly  realizes  once 
again  the  impossibility  of  measuring  Mr.  Ollivant's 
books  after  the  ordinary  standard.  It  is  easy, 
no  doubt,  to  point  out  many  hidden  meanings  in 
Redcoat  Captain,  to  show  that  it  is  an  elaborate 
political  satire,  a  verbal  caricature  of  the  British 
army.  But  its  widest  appeal  will  be  exerted  as  an 
allegory  of  the  first  year  of  married  life.  Baby  is 
by  no  means  the  first  young  wife  who  has  tried 
to  "  teach-by-tease  " ;  Tiny  is  by  no  means  the 
first  newly-made  husband  who  has  slammed  the 
door  and  "  gone  j  oggle- j  oggle  down  the  path," 
and  furthermore  has  added  insult  to  injury  by  pre- 
tending "  don't-care-damb."  The  specimen  quar- 
rel which  follows  in  Redcoat  Captain  deserves  to 
be  quoted  in  extenso: 

Then  Baby  peeped;  and  her  handkerchief  was  at 
her  mouth;  and  she  said  in  a  wee  voice, 

"Back  for  tea,  Tiny?" 

So  Tiny  answered, 

"  Dunno,"  and  joggled  down  the  path. 

Then  Baby  gasped, 

"  Hope  you  will,  Tiny-boy !  "  And  she  shut  the 
door  and  ran,  because  she  was  taken  blubby  bad. 

And  when  Tiny  heard  that,  he  could  not  bear  it 
any  more,  for  you  can't  if  they  keep  on  at  it;  and  he 
thought, 

"  You  are  a  darling!     I  am  a  cad." 

And   he  stopped,   and   turned,   and   went  back  to 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  289 

the  door  as  though  he  had  his  seven  league  boots  on, 
to  say  sorry  I'm  a  cad,  which  he  truly  was. 

But  the  door  was  shut. 

Then  Tiny  ran  up  and  down  on  his  feet,  and  cried 
at  the  key-hole, 

"  Lemme  in  !  lemme  in !  lemme  in !  O  Baby !  I  do 
love  you !     Truly  sorry !  lemme  in !  " 

But  it  was  too  late  then. 

So  Tiny  stood  outside  the  door  and  wished  he 
hadn't.  And  that  is  what  Adam  spent  his  time  doing 
outside  the  Gates  of  Eden.  And  it  is  what  most  of 
us  spend  a  lot  of  time  doing  when  it's  too  late.  And 
it  very  often  isn't  till  you  stand  outside  and  wish 
you  hadn't,  that  you  know  how  jolly  it  was  inside, 
before  you  had. 

There  you  have  a  characteristic  quotation, — it 
might  have  been  any  one  of  a  score  of  others 
equally  incisive,  equally  human.  For,  after  all, 
the  quality  through  which  Redcoat  Captain  is 
destined  to  live  is  not  that  of  satire,  but  rather  the 
whimsical  lightness  of  phrase  that  veils  a  deep, 
underlying  seriousness,  and  makes  the  mythical 
kingdom  of  "  That  Country  "  a  goal  within  the 
reach  of  all  of  us,  if  only  we  can  remember  to 
live  with  the  wise  straightforwardness  and  sim- 
plicity of  little  children. 

To  a  casual  glance,  it  would  seem  as  though  no 
book  could  be  found  presenting  a  greater  contrast 
than  Mr.  Ollivant's  new  volume,  The  Gentleman. 


290  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

Yet,  if  you  study  the  style,  you  see  very  quickly 
the  same  tendency  toward  a  sort  of  literary  short- 
hand, an  almost  algebraic  brevity  of  word  and 
phrase,  which  in  the  hands  of  this  one  man  is  at 
times  startlingly  effective,  and  which  at  the  same 
time  defies  imitation,  and  would  become  exas- 
perating if  clumsily  plagiarized.  This  one  point 
of  similarity  in  style  is  worth  dwelling  upon,  be- 
cause there  is  always  a  certain  interest  in  tracing 
the  kinship  between  an  author's  works ;  and  in 
this  particular  case,  the  kinship  lies  in  style  alone, 
— otherwise,  The  Gentleman  stands  by  itself,  a  dis- 
tinctly bigger  achievement  than  either  of  its 
author's  earlier  books  ;  and,  one  is  tempted  to  add, 
the  book  best  entitled  of  any  story  written  in  Eng- 
lish since  the  days  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  to 
trace  its  ancestry  straight  back  to  the  purest 
strain  of  the  romantic  novel. 

Had  he  chosen,  Mr.  Ollivant  might  have  in- 
scribed as  sub-title  to  The  Gentleman  "  A  Novel 
Without  a  Heroine."  The  shadow  of  a  woman's 
influence  in  moulding  the  destinies  of  England  lies 
heavily  across  its  canvas,  but  only  men  enter  into 
the  action  of  it.  It  is  difficult  to  recall  for  the 
moment  any  recent  volume  of  importance  since 
Joseph  Conrad's  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus  from 
which  the  feminine  element  is  so  completely  elim- 
inated.    A  two-page  preface,  in  its  opening  lines, 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  291 

gives  the  date,  July,  1805,  as  well  as  the  historical 
background  to  the  story. 

"  Succeed,  and  you  command  the  Irish  expedition," 
said  the  squat  fellow. 

"  My  Emperor ! "  replied  the  tall  cavalryman, 
saluted,  and  clanked  away  in  the  gloom. 

Regarding  the  element  of  true  history  in  this 
book,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  any  one  qualified 
to  appreciate  the  finest  qualities  of  it  will  care  to 
raise  a  question.  At  least  some  such  thought  must 
have  been  in  Mr.  Ollivant's  mind  when  for  his  clos- 
ing word  he  penned,  with  characteristic  brevity,  "  I 
will  answer  no  questions  about  this  book."  His 
instinct  must  have  told  him  that  only  those  prosaic 
souls  who  are  blind  to  the  spirit  of  true  romance 
would  want  to  measure  him  by  the  dry-as-dust 
standards  of  recorded  history.  It  is  the  hall-mark 
of  the  best  historical  romance,  whether  it  be  Ivan- 
hoe  or  Les  Trois  Mousquet aires,  Richard  Yea-and- 
Nay  or  The  Gentleman,  that  one  cares  not  in  the 
least  whether  the  historic  personages  within  their 
pages  ever  had  a  separate  existence  in  the  real 
world.  They  exist  for  this  once  at  least,  more 
vivid,  more  genuine,  more  convincingly  human 
than  any  historic  record  could  ever  make  them. 
And  whatever  statistical  history  may  have  to  say 
of    Richard    I.,    of    Richelieu,    of    "  the    man    of 


292  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

Aboukir  Bay," — there  are  those  of  us  who  will  still 
treasure  the  pictures  drawn  by  the  masters  of 
romance,  among  whom  Mr.  Ollivant  seems  destined 
to  find  an  abiding  place. 

Of  the  details  of  plot  in  The  Gentleman  it  is 
not  necessary  to  know  more  than  this :  that  it 
concerns  an  attempt  to  entrap  and  capture  no  less 
a  personage  than  Nelson  himself,  through  the 
agency  of  the  woman  whom  Nelson  loves ;  the  dis- 
covery of  that  attempt  through  a  message,  hidden 
in  a  woman's  scent-bottle  that  is  found  in  a  dead 
man's  mouth ;  and  the  frustration  of  the  whole 
scheme  at  the  cost  of  many  valiant  lives.  What 
you  bring  away  from  the  book  is  not  so  much  a 
detailed  impression  of  a  carefully  worked-out  plan 
of  campaign  by  the  "  Squat  Fellow  "  across  the 
channel,  as  it  is  a  series  of  tense,  grim,  masterful 
pictures  of  heroes,  indomitably  fighting  and  dying 
gloriously  for  a  great  cause.  As  an  example  of 
literary  shorthand, — for  there  is  really  no  other 
phrase  that  serves  to  define  his  peculiar  power  of 
verbal  condensation,  his  remarkable  trick  of  nar- 
rative foreshortening, — The  Gentleman  is  quite 
inimitable.  The  scenes  shift  before  your  eyes  with 
the  rapidity  of  a  moving  picture ;  you  catch  light- 
ning flashes  of  battle  scenes  glimpsed  through  a 
murk  of  smoke  and  fire ;  a  dozen  words,  the  stroke 
of  a  pen  and  the  impression  has  been  given.  An- 
other penstroke,  and  you  perceive  succinct  and  un- 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  293 

forgettable  the  picture  of  nature's  peace,  follow- 
ing upon  the  discord  of  man :  "  All  was  silence 
and  a  few  pale  stars." 

But  the  only  adequate  way  in  which  to  give  an 
impression  of  the  true  flavor  of  the  book  is  by 
letting  it  speak  for  itself  in  a  few  rather  extended 
quotations.  No  one  who  has  described  warfare  on 
land  or  sea,  from  Smollett,  Marryat  and  Hugo  to 
Tolstoy  and  Zola,  has  been  free  from  scenes  of  hor- 
ror. Alfred  Ollivant  is  no  exception  to  the  rule; 
there  are  many  pages  in  The  Gentleman  that  set 
you  shuddering.  But  study  the  sheer,  grim  power 
of  a  passage  like  the  following,  which  describes  a 
boy's  first  impression  of  what  is  happening  below 
decks,  among  the  guns  of  a  battleship  in  action : 

The  boy  dropped  into  Hell. 

Down  there  was  no  order.  All  was  howling  chaos. 
Each  gun-captain  fought  his  own  gun,  regardless  of 
the  rest.  Billows  of  smoke  drifted  to  and  fro;  shad- 
owy forms  flitted;  guns  bounded  and  bellowed;  here 
and  there  a  red  glare  lit  the  fog. 

Through  the  shattering  roar  of  the  guns,  the  rend- 
ing of  planks,  the  scream  of  round-shot,  came  the 
voices  of  men,  dim-seen.  Jokes,  blasphemies,  pray- 
ers, groans,  issued  in  nightmare  medley  from  that 
death- fog.  .  .  . 

On  mid-deck  a  shadow  was  pirouetting  madly. 
Suddenly,  it  collapsed;  and  the  boy  saw  it  ended  at 
the  neck. 


294*  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

A  dim  figure  lolled  against  an  overturned  gun.  As 
the  lad  gazed,  it  pointed  to  a  puddle  beside  it. 

"  That's  me/'  it  said  with  slow  and  solemn  in- 
terest. 

The  boy  trod  on  something  in  the  smoke.  A 
bloody  wraith,  spread-eagled  upon  the  deck,  raised 
tired  eyes  to  his. 

"  That's  all  right,  sir,"  came  a  whisper.  "  Don't 
make  no  odds.     I  got  all  1  want."  .  .  . 

A  shot,  screeching  past  the  boy's  nose,  took  his 
breath  away.  He  staggered  back,  and  brought  up 
against  a  gun-captain,  his  shoulders  to  the  breech  of 
the  gun. 

The  man  turned  with  a  grin.  It  was  the  Gunner, 
naked  to  the  waist,  and  smoke-grimed. 

"Sweet  mess,  ain't  it?"  he  coughed.  "How  d'ye 
like  your  first  smell  o'  powder,  sir?  " 

And  as  a  companion  picture  to  this,  here  is  a 
glimpse  of  the  boy's  condition  of  mind  when  he 
first  catches  the  contagion  of  conflict  from  his 
battle-fellows  : 

Uplifted  as  a  lover,  the  wine  of  War  drowned  his 
senses.  In  the  glory  of  doing,  he  had  no  thought 
for  the  thing  done.  His  was  the  midsummer  mad- 
ness of  slaying.  In  that  singing  moment  how  should 
he  remember  the  bleak  and  shuddering  autumn  of 
pain,  inevitably  to  follow? — the  winter  of  clammy 
death? — the  March-wind  voices  of  distant  women, 
wailing  their  mates  ? 


ALFRED  OLLIVANT  295 

And  in  contrast  with  these  scenes  of  carnage, 
here  is  one  more  episode  printed  as  a  complete  sub- 
chapter, which  will  serve  the  double  purpose  of 
illustrating  the  author's  power  of  pathetic  tender- 
ness, as  well  as  his  ability  to  say  a  wondrous  deal 
in  the  fewest  and  simplest  words : 

The  Parson  bent. 

"  Piper!  "  he  called  low.    "  Piper!  " 

The  old  man  stirred. 

"  D'you  know  who  I  am?  " 

One  great  forefinger  uplifted  and  fell. 

"  We  won  through,"  choked  the  Parson,  "  Nelson's 
safe." 

The  old  man's  lips  parted. 

"  Mr.  Caryll's  brought  a  message  for  you  from  Nel- 
son," continued  the  Parson.     "Kit!" 

The  boy  bent  his  lips  to  the  ear  of  the  dying  sailor. 

"  Piper!  "  he  cried,  his  pure  boy's  voice  ringing 
out  fearlessly.  "  Nelson — sent — his — love — to — you 
— his — love." 

"  He  can't  hear,"  choked  the  Parson,  "  it's  no 
good." 

"  Hush,"  said  the  boy. 

He  knew  the  message  would  take  minutes  traveling 
along  the  dying  passages  to  the  brain. 

At  last,  at  last  it  reached. 

The  old  man's  face  broke  into  a  smile,  fair  as  a 
winter  sunset. 

"  Love,"  he  whispered,  nodded  deliberately,  and 
died. 


296  ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

But  in  attempting  to  find  adequate  quotations, 
one  runs  up  against  the  very  unusual  difficulty  of 
choice,  because  almost  every  paragraph  strikes 
one  on  a  second  reading  as  almost  equally  good. 
Indeed,  the  more  one  studies  The  Gentleman,  the 
more  the  conviction  grows  that  it  is  one  of  the  very 
few  novels  of  the  first  magnitude  that  the  past 
decade  has  produced. 

In  conclusion,  a  few  words  seem  to  be  demanded 
regarding  Mr.  Ollivant's  place  in  contemporary 
fiction.  It  is  obvious  that  he  stands  outside  the 
current  movement,  that  he  has  not  seriously  in- 
fluenced its  trend  nor  been  influenced  by  it.  All 
that  he  does  bears  the  unmistakable  stamp  of  origi- 
nality,— not  that  commoner,  more  obvious  original- 
ity that  lies  in  a  clever  plot,  a  new  type  of  char- 
acter, but  that  far  rarer  sort  which  suggests  a 
personality  behind  the  book  bigger  and  finer  than 
the  book  itself.  It  is  this  pervading  sense,  as  one 
reads  the  pages  of  Mr.  Ollivant,  of  enjoying  an 
hour's  intercourse  with  a  man  who  has  thought 
deeply  on  many  subjects  and  has  reached  an  ab- 
solute independence  of  view  through  his  own  line 
of  reasoning,  that  gives  his  books  a  breadth  and 
depth  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  immediate 
scope  and  interest.  They  are  not  local  or 
ephemeral  in  their  appeal;  they  have  a  touch  of 
universality  that  is  the  hall-mark  of  books  likely 
to  endure. 


MRS.  II EX  It Y  DUDENKY 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

The  difficulty  that  presents  itself  at  the  out- 
set of  a  critical  study  of  Mrs.  Henry  Dudeney's 
novels  is  the  simple  fact  that  the  majority  of  them 
are  not  of  sufficient  importance  to  merit  such 
analysis.  The  Mrs.  Dudeney  of  recent  years,  the 
author  of  Robin  Brilliant  and  Rachel  Lorian,  of 
The  Orchard  Thief  and  The  Shoulder-Knot,  might 
properly  be  dismissed  with  a  brief  paragraph  giv- 
ing her  credit  for  a  pleasant  style,  a  pervading 
readableness,  and  a  keen  eye  for  the  importance  of 
seeming  trivialities.  But  it  happens  that  Mrs. 
Dudeney  has  had  two  periods ;  and  in  the  earlier 
of  the  two  she  produced  at  least  three  volumes  of 
very  unusual  quality,  volumes  which  it  is  difficult 
for  any  one,  on  whom  they  have  once  cast  their 
spell,  to  appraise  in  terms  of  sober  moderation. 
These  volumes  are  Folly  Corner,  Men  of  Marlowe's 
and  Spindle  and  Plough, — and  it  is  to  these  three 
books  that  the  present  study  will  be  mainly  limited. 

It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  whatever  is  here 
said  by  way  of  generalization  regarding  Mrs. 
Dudeney's  literary  creed  and  methods  of  work  re- 
fers to  her  earlier  period,  the  period  when  her 

297 


298  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

powers  of  observation  were  wonderfully  alert  and 
her  intuitions  of  character  and  temperament  aston- 
ishingly keen.  As  a  novelist  she  has  two  claims  to 
consideration.  One  is  her  marvelous  skill  in  the 
presentment  of  petty  details ;  the  other  is  her  in- 
sight into  the  complexities  of  some  of  the  more 
uncommon  types  of  feminine  nature.  In  her  com- 
prehensive view  of  life  nothing  seems  to  be  too 
obvious  or  too  trivial  for  mention.  She  delights 
in  emphasizing  the  sharp  contrast  offered  every- 
where and  at  all  times  around  us  between  the  things 
of  the  spirit  and  the  things  of  the  flesh, — the  gro- 
tesque incongruity  between  the  stress  and  stonn 
of  inner  emotions  and  the  untroubled  tenor  of  the 
outside  physical  world.  Throughout  the  crises  in 
her  stories  she  insists  upon  keeping  clearly  be- 
fore us  the  petty  happenings  of  everyday  life, — 
the  distant  ring  of  the  blacksmith's  hammer,  the 
trivial,  empty  gossip  of  good-natured  but  hope- 
lessly limited  village  folk,  a  stranger's  chance  ut- 
terance overheard  in  a  crowd  and  freighted  with 
unguessed  significance,  the  meaningless  words 
which  wink  out,  letter  by  letter,  in  lines  of  fire  as 
glimpsed  from  a  London  'bus,  and  serve  to  sym- 
bolize "  the  weird,  the  threatening,  the  unknown." 
Regarding  Mrs.  Dudeney's  second  claim  to  at- 
tention, it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  say  precisely 
what  one  has  in  mind  because  of  the  danger  of  con- 
veying some  subtle  half-tone  of  meaning  which  may 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  299 

not  be  quite  the  meaning  the  writer  sought  to  con- 
vey. In  view  of  the  stigma  which  seems  to  attach 
to  the  term  "  sex-problem  novel,"  one  hesitates  to 
apply  it  to  such  eminently  sane,  clear-sighted  pic- 
tures of  life  as  Folly  Comer  and  Spindle  and 
Plough.  Yet  the  vital  and  dominant  note  in  both 
these  books,  the  note  which  differentiates  them 
sharply  from  the  work  of  many  another  careful 
and  able  writer,  is  their  delicate  yet  pervading 
consciousness  of  sex.  Mrs.  Dudeney's  literary 
creed  may  best  be  defined  as  a  wholesome  realism, 
the  sort  of  realism  which  does  not  go  out  of  its  way 
to  search  for  the  unpleasant  side  of  life,  but  does 
not  ignore  or  shrink  from  what  it  finds  in  the 
natural  and  ordinary  course.  With  the  morbid 
curiosity  of  certain  psychological  writers  of  the 
Continental  school  for  what  is  abnormal  and  per- 
verted, she  has  nothing  in  common.  She  sim- 
ply recognizes  quite  frankly  the  existence  of 
certain  basic,  elemental  facts,  and  handles  them 
with  a  fearlessness  characteristic  of  those  who  live 
their  lives  close  to  nature,  who  have  grown  up  in 
the  atmosphere  of  field  and  farm  and  delight  in  the 
study  of  nature's  methods  of  growth  and  of 
fruition. 

In  treating  the  sex  element,  it  is  quite  unneces- 
sary for  a  novelist  to  go  to  the  length  of  a  Zola 
or  a  d'Annunzio  in  order  to  make  us  recognize 
that  it  is  an  ever-present  factor  in  the  social  life 


300  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

of  all  times  and  countries ;  and  that  no  amount  of 
conventional  ignoring  or  glossing  over  will  alter 
the  fact  that  it  is  often  a  paramount  influence  in 
the  history  of  many  a  normal  man  or  woman ;  that 
below  an  apparently  tranquil  surface,  an  unspoken 
and  inexplicable  partiality  or  aversion  contains  the 
key  to  many  a  life  which  otherwise  would  have  been 
lived  differently.  The  great  distinction  of  Mrs. 
Dudeney's  book  is  her  marvelous  subtlety  in  un- 
derstanding and  expounding  just  such  cases  of 
personal  attraction  and  repulsion.  Her  characters 
stand  forth  from  the  printed  page  endowed  with 
the  breath  of  life,  not  because  they  are  better  in- 
dividualized, clearer  portraitures,  with  all  their 
little  idiosyncrasies  of  manner  and  of  taste,  but 
because  of  their  frank  consciousness  of  sex,  be- 
cause she  has  made  them  normal,  healthy  men  and 
women,  tingling  with  vitality,  and  the  joy  of  liv- 
ing. Her  men,  at  least  the  men  for  whom  she  be- 
trays a  personal  predilection,  are  for  the  most 
part  stalwart,  hard-working  farmers,  of  the  more 
prosperous  sort,  with  an  atmosphere  of  the  glebe 
about  them ;  her  women  are  large  and  built  on 
strong  lines,  and,  if  not  actually  beautiful,  are 
at  least  good  to  look  upon,  and  with  a  suggestion 
of  physical  well-being  about  them.  They  are  none 
of  them  of  the  neurotic,  anemic  type  of  Con- 
tinental fiction.  There  is  not  a  Magda  nor  a 
Hedda  Gabler  nor  a  Madame  de  Burne   among 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  301 

them.  They  are  as  far  from  being  spoiled  by 
modern  higher  education  as  they  are  from  sink- 
ing to  the  level  of  mere  household  drudgery.  In 
short,  they  are  simply  types  of  the  average  middle- 
class  Englishwoman,  with  all  her  qualities  and  her 
limitations. 

It  is  in  her  searching  studies  of  women  that  Mrs. 
Dudeney  has  revealed  powers  that  approach 
closely  to  the  border-line  of  genius.  Her  chief  pre- 
occupation seems  to  be  the  conflict  which  goes  on 
in  the  heart  of  a  certain  type  of  woman  between 
two  opposing  instincts, — that  of  independence  and 
freedom  and  physical  comfort  on  the  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other  that  of  sex  and  sacrifice  and  self- 
surrender.  For  the  most  part  the  type  which 
seems  to  have  interested  Mrs.  Dudeney,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  all  others,  is  that  in  which  the  second 
of  these  impulses  is  paramount.  Harriott  Wicken 
is  a  case  in  point.  From  the  moment  that  she  first 
met  Daniel  Darnell,  casually  met  him  in  a  'bus  and 
scraped  an  acquaintance  as  a  housemaid  might 
have  done,  he  was  the  one  dominant  influence  in  her 
life.  Here  is  the  way  that  Mrs.  Dudeney  gives  us 
a  glimpse  into  the  girl's  heart  in  the  midst  of  the 
honeymoon,  multiplying  and  piling  up  her  luminous 
little  details  until  we  could  not  help  seeing,  even 
against  our  will: 

Her  eyes,  through  the  zigzag  veil,  were  fixed  hun- 
grily on  her  husband.     She  was  so  happy.     There 


302  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

would  no  longer  be  any  wrong  settings  to  life.  Peo- 
ple would  be  harmonious.  She  was  already  begin- 
ning to  find  out  that  this  was  only  another  word  for 
well-bred.  Dandie  was  the  keystone  of  her  life. 
She  was  unconscious  of  the  thick  streak  of  prig  in 
him.  He  was  so  handsome,  so  well-dressed,  so  ele- 
gant. She  loved  his  drawling,  haughty  voice.  She 
loved  to  see  him  take  out  his  lizard-skin  cigar  case 
bound  in  silver,  or  his  equally  dainty  and  effeminate 
pocket-book.  She  used  to  finger  the  bottles  and  cas- 
kets in  his  dressing-bag;  she  had  never  come  into 
actual  contact  with  such  daintiness  before.  His  trim, 
golden  mustache,  well-kept  nails,  and  expression  of 
gentle  boredom  fascinated  and  rather  awed  her. 
Sometimes  she  fancied  herself  quite  uncouth  and  loud 
by  contrast.  He  was  faintly  stupid  too.  She  found 
that  restful.  She  was  so  full  of  moods  that  his  even 
temper  and  indolent,  everyday  way  of  taking  life 
refreshed  her.  Once  she  had  longed  to  be  clever,  to 
distinguish  herself  in  some  way,  but  now  she  had 
learned  wisdom;  clever  people  were  a  great  nuisance 
to  every  one,  and  most  of  all  to  themselves. 

The  central  interest,  however,  in  The  Maternity 
of  Harriott  Wicken,  is  less  the  relations  between 
a  particular  man  and  woman  than  it  is  a  grim 
problem  in  heredity,  the  shadow  of  retribution 
which  nature  exacts  from  those  who  break  her 
laws.  For  generations  there  has  been  a  taint  in 
the  family  of  Wicken.  Intemperance,  epilepsy, 
insanity  and  crime  are  some  of  the  forms  in  which 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  303 

the  taint  manifests  itself.  When  Harriott  Wicken 
herself  is  ushered  into  the  world  it  is  under  cir- 
cumstances as  hideous  as  any  author  has  ever 
ventured  to  imagine.  The  mother,  knowing  her 
hour  has  almost  come,  has  tried  to  distract  her 
troubled  thoughts  by  reading  the  columns  of  a 
local  paper  in  which  are  printed  the  ghastly  de- 
tails of  a  brutal  murder,  a  young  girl  of  the  neigh- 
borhood found  in  a  swamp  where  her  assailant  had 
hidden  the  body  after  cutting  her  throat.  The  ex- 
perienced old  woman  who  is  in  attendance  upon 
Mrs.  Wicken  and  has  helped  to  bring  more  than 
one  child  of  that  name  into  the  world,  tries  to 
draw  her  thoughts  away  from  these  morbid  hor- 
rors, but  at  this  critical  moment  the  husband's 
heavy,  shuffling  tread  is  heard  and  he  lurches  into 
the  room  and  stumbles  in  a  drunken  stupor  into  a 
chair.  It  is  better  to  leave  Mrs.  Dudeney  to  tell 
what  follows  in  her  own  words: 

The  newspaper  which  his  wife  had  let  slip  to  the 
floor  attracted  his  attention.  He  pounced  on  it  with 
an  uncanny  air  of  glee,  turned  to  the  report  of  the 
tragedy,  stared  at  it  with  a  wide,  vacant  smile  for  a 
moment,  and  then,  throwing  it  down,  thrust  his  face 
forward  and  gave  a  laugh.  .  .  .  They  saw  him  draw 
his  forefinger  across  his  throat  in  a  curved  clean 
sweep,  and  then  he  laughed  again. 

"Charming  girl!  Neat  job!  The  fools!  They 
little  think  that  I — how  she  tore  and  struggled — like 


304  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

a   tiger !      Heavy  to   drag  into  cover.      My  knife — 
Rosalie !  " 


And  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  Mrs.  Dudeney 
laconically  sums  up  the  net  results  of  the  tragedy 
with  the  brief  statement  that  "  upstairs,  Mrs.  Gat- 
ley  was  giving  a  new  Wicken,  in  spite  of  itself,  its 
first  toilette,"  and  that  Rosalie  "  was  growing  cold 
in  her  bed,  her  sharp-pointed  nose  severely  out- 
lined, and  her  eyes — the  horror  had  never  gone  out 
of  them — closed  on  an  unsatisfactory  world." 
Harriott  is  adopted  by  her  mother's  sister  and 
grows  up  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  her  father 
committed  suicide  on  the  same  night  that  he  was 
responsible  for  her  mother's  death.  It  is  made 
very  clear  that,  with  the  curse  of  the  house  of 
Wicken  hanging  over  her,  Harriott  has  no  moral 
right  to  marry ;  but,  unfortunately  for  her,  the 
poor  girl  is  not  warned  in  time.  Her  child,  when 
born,  is  outwardly  like  other  children,  and  as  the 
months  go  by  she  is  far  too  engrossed  in  Dandie, 
and  also  too  jealous  of  his  pride  in  the  child  to  be 
as  observant  of  it  as  a  mother  should.  It  is  only 
when  the  child  is  over  a  year  old  and  is  still  hair- 
less and  toothless,  unable  to  creep  or  to  lisp  a 
syllable  and  gazes  on  the  world  with  eyes  of  dull 
vacancy,  that  a  chance  bit  of  servants'  gossip  en- 
lightens her  and  reveals  the  horror  she  must  face. 
Dandie    has     meanwhile    been    called     to    South 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  305 

America  on  business,  and  is  gone  altogether 
eighteen  months.  Week  after  week,  during  his  ab- 
sence, he  receives  long  letters  relating  in  detail 
the  clever  sayings  and  doings  of  his  child;  every 
chance  phrase  overheard  by  Harriott  from  the 
children  in  the  London  streets  contributes  to  the 
weekly  bulletin.  And  when  he  returns  at  last, 
somewhat  unexpectedly,  he  is  a  little  puzzled  to 
find  that  his  wife  has  given  up  their  former  home, 
removed  to  new  quarters  and  dismissed  all  the  old 
staff  of  servants.  But  he  quickly  forgets  his  as- 
tonishment in  delight  at  the  bright,  sunny-faced, 
beautiful  little  child  that  calls  him  "  papa  "  and 
dances  gaily  around  him.  And  all  the  time  Har- 
riott is  haunted  by  the  last  glimpse  she  had  of  the 
pitiful  little  monstrosity  which  was  none  the  less 
her  own  flesh  and  blood,  and  which  she  had  left  to 
the  untender  ministration  of  an  old  hag  in  a  dis- 
tant country  town.  Of  course,  a  piece  of  decep- 
tion of  this  sort  sooner  or  later  works  its  own 
retribution.  From  the  hour  when  she  gave  up  her 
child  Harriott's  torture  of  defrauded  motherhood 
begins.  She  hates  the  innocent  usurper  with  an 
augmenting  hatred,  a  hatred  that  she  cannot  dis- 
guise; and  she  sees  that  because  of  it,  her  hus- 
band's love  is  slipping  from  her.  And  then  a  few 
crucial  events  happen  in  swift  succession.  The 
young  physician  who  was  an  early  suitor  in  the 
days  before  she  met  Dandie  and  who  helped  her  in 


306  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

the  substitution  of  the  child,  sends  her  a  pre- 
arranged signal;  she  must  come  at  once  if  she 
wishes  to  see  it  alive.  Throughout  the  night  she 
and  the  doctor  are  together  in  a  lonely  cottage 
waging  a  winning  battle  against  pneumonia,  and 
by  morning  the  useless  little  life  is  saved.  But 
gossip  travels  quickly,  and  Dandie  learns  that  his 
wife  and  the  doctor  have  met  clandestinely.  It 
would  have  been  interesting  to  learn  what,  in  Mrs. 
Dudeney's  opinion,  would  have  been  the  attitude 
of  a  man  like  Dandie  if  he  had  learned  of  the  de- 
ception practised  on  him  by  his  wife.  But  this  he 
was  destined  not  to  do.  It  was  easier  for  Harriott 
to  let  him  believe  the  worst  about  her,  to  pass  out 
of  his  life,  to  bury  herself  and  her  idiot  child  in  the 
isolation  of  the  old  country  house  which  had  wit- 
nessed her  own  birth  and  shared  so  many  grim 
family  secrets ;  and  later,  when  the  cold,  gray 
horror  of  her  exile  became  unbearable,  to  end  it 
all  by  aiding  nature  to  shorten  the  child's  life 
and  promptly  follow  it  herself  into  the  final  mys- 
tery. 

Folly  Corner,  although  it  has  its  grim  episodes, 
is  by  contrast  a  blithe  and  cheerful  book.  Further- 
more, it  is  easily  Mrs.  Dudeney's  masterpiece.  The 
character  of  Pamela  Crisp,  which  constitutes  the 
vital  interest  of  the  book,  is  one  of  which,  it  may 
be  said,  with  some  confidence,  that  not  one  woman 
in  ten  will  recognize  the  absolute  truth,  for  she 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  307 

stands  outside  the  circle  of  their  experience.  The 
casual  man  is  far  more  likely  to  recognize  the  type, 
while  a  small  masculine  minority  will  inevitably 
find  her  fascinating.  And  yet  Pamela  is  not  a 
girl  who  may  justly  be  called  abnormal.  On  the 
surface,  she  even  impresses  one  as  a  trifle  common- 
place. She  is  a  big  girl,  we  are  told  casually,  of 
twenty-five  or  less,  with  gray  eyes  and  fair  hair, 
"  a  handsome  girl  in  the  elementary  way  which 
satisfies  most  men  " ;  she  is,  moreover,  of  mercurial 
temperament,  and  quick  to  register  slight  fluctua- 
tions in  the  emotional  barometer,  a  girl  who  "  can 
be  made  happy  by  a  bar  of  French  chocolate  and 
miserable  by  a  shabby  bonnet."  She  is  a  curious 
blending  of  snob  and  Cockney,  with  just  such  a 
smattering  of  culture  as  to  take  herself  and  her 
opinions  very  seriously;  above  all,  a  thoroughly 
feminine,  yet  thoroughly  cat-like  young  person, 
with  all  a  cat's  love  of  a  sleek  coat  and  a  cozy  cor- 
ner by  the  fire — and,  like  a  cat,  quite  guiltless  of 
any  sense  of  gratitude.  Such  is  the  obvious,  every- 
day Pamela,  the  Pamela  who  was  known  to  the 
placid,  commonplace  ladies  of  Liddleshorn.  But, 
unfortunately  for  Pamela's  peace  of  mind,  there 
was  another  side  to  her  nature,  an  emotional  side, 
which  had  long  lain  dormant,  and  which,  when 
awakened,  was  a  revelation  to  herself.  There  were 
in  her  nature  certain  imperious  claims  of  sex, — 
certain  chords  of  passion  ready  to  respond  to  the 


308  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

right  man ;  and  the  right  man  had  touched  them. 
It  makes  no  difference  in  the  story  that  Pamela's 
romance  had  been  an  utterly  commonplace  affair — ■ 
a  mere  boarding-house  courtship,  interrupted  by 
the  vulgar  accident  of  her  lover's  arrest  and  im- 
prisonment for  swindling;  the  real  point  of  inter- 
est lies  in  the  influence  exerted  over  her  by  this 
one  man — an  influence  so  great  that  the  mere 
pressure  of  his  hand,  the  sound  of  his  voice  when 
he  called  her  "  Pam,"  the  sight  of  his  name  in  the 
daily  papers,  any  material  evidence,  in  short,  of 
his  existence,  was  sufficient  to  destroy  her  will 
power  and  render  her  his  abject  slave.  At  the 
opening  of  the  story,  however,  the  prison  doors, 
shutting  him  from  her  sight,  have  partly  broken 
the  spell,  and  her  normal  love  of  ease  and  com- 
fort begins  to  reassert  itself.  But  the  slanting 
shadow  of  those  prison  walls  stretches  coldly 
across  every  page  of  the  book. 

Folly  Corner  has  been  the  abode  of  the  Jaynes 
ever  since  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  every 
male  Jayne  has  been  a  Jethro.  Mrs.  Dudeney 
evidently  believes  that  destinies  are  largely  de- 
cided by  the  trivialities  of  life.  It  was  just  because 
the  present  Jethro  Jayne  had  taken  an  extra  glass 
of  cider  on  market  day,  perhaps  also  because  he 
let  his  thoughts  linger  too  long  upon  the  demure 
little  ringlets  on  the  waitress's  pretty  forehead, 
that  he  was  prompted  to  indulge  in  the  joke  of 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  309 

advertising  for  a  wife  in  the  Liddleshorn  Herald. 
It  was  equally  by  chance  that  a  stray  copy  of  this 
paper  found  its  way  to  London  and  fell  beneath 
the  eye  of  Pamela ;  and  because  she  remembered  in 
a  vague  way  having  seen  the  sheet  before,  in  child- 
hood, her  glance  strayed  down  the  column  of  ad- 
vertisements. Coinciding  as  it  did  with  her  long- 
ing to  escape  from  the  haunting  shadow  of  the 
prison,  the  temptation  was  too  strong,  and 
Pamela  answered.  The  effect  of  the  cider  had 
meanwhile  worn  off,  and  Jethro  would  probably 
have  carried  his  matrimonial  joke  no  further;  but 
the  name  Pamela  Crisp  appealed  to  him ;  his 
mother  had  been  a  Crisp;  Pamela's  father,  he 
learned  later,  had  been  called  John,  the  name  of 
his  uncle  who  had  run  away  to  sea  when  a  boy. 
He  and  Pamela  might  be  cousins;  indeed,  they 
must  be;  and  in  that  way  he  settled  it.  It  is  as 
Jethro's  cousin  that  Pamela  is  introduced  to  all 
the  relatives,  at  Liddleshorn,  and  to  Jethro's  grim 
old  housekeeper,  Gainah  Toat,  who  for  a  score  of 
years  has  locked  in  her  heart  the  secret  knowledge 
that  had  Jethro's  father  lived  but  a  few  weeks 
longer  she  would  have  been  mistress  and  not  serv- 
ant at  Folly  Corner,  and  who  now  sees  herself 
about  to  be  supplanted  and  shoved  aside.  The 
vigor  with  which  Mrs.  Dudeney  has  drawn  this 
character  of  Gainah  is  masterly  and  second  only 
to  that  of  Pamela  in  interest. 


310  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

She  had  a  white  face;  there  was  a  general  appear- 
ance of  wasting  about  her.  Her  body  was  flat  and 
square;  her  faded  gown  made  no  pretense  of  show- 
ing the  defect;  it  went  straight  from  her  stringy 
throat  to  her  hardly  perceptible  lips  without  a  break, 
without  a  kindly  fold  or  tuck  of  the  stuff. 

Gainah  is  a  woman  whose  life  "  had  been  one 
long  flurry  of  immaculate  housekeeping";  whose 
naturally  fierce  passions  had  found  their  only  out- 
let in  feverish  activity,  and  now  that  she  finds  her- 
self superseded,  the  transformation  which  goes  on 
in  her  dull  mind  is  admirably  developed,  although 
quite  subservient  to  the  central  theme  of  the  story. 

So  Pamela  comes  to  be  installed  at  Folly  Cor- 
ner ;  and  fits  into  the  niche  offered  her,  with  all  the 
complacency  of  a  homeless  cat.  The  weeks  slip 
by,  Jethro's  matter-of-fact  courtship  progresses, 
the  wedding  day  is  set, — apparently  nothing 
stands  in  the  way  of  their  happiness.  Suddenly 
her  lover,  Edred,  reappears,  having  been  let  out 
before  his  time  on  a  ticket-of-leave.  At  the  sound 
of  his  voice  Pamela  becomes  like  wax ;  he  is  intro- 
duced to  Jethro  as  her  brother,  and  in  the  end 
manages  to  extort  from  the  latter  enough  money 
to  take  him  to  London  and  start  him  on  a  new 
series  of  swindling  schemes. 

From  this  point  begins  the  real  interest  of  the 
story,— Pamela's  intense  and  prolonged  struggle 
between  her  miserable  passion  for  Edred  and  the 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  311 

life  of  respectable  tranquillity  which  she  sacri- 
fices for  him.  The  end  is  inevitable, — she  follows 
him  to  London,  and  after  some  demurring  on  his 
part  they  are  married.  Yet  it  is  all  in  vain  that 
Mrs.  Dudeney  assures  us  that  Pamela  was 
;'  fiercely  respectable  " ;  we  know  well  enough  that 
even  if  Edred  had  insisted  upon  dispensing  with 
the  ceremony,  Pamela  would  nevertheless  have  re- 
mained with  him ;  all  that  he  needed  to  do  was  call 
her  "Pam,"  or  "good  little  girl,"  in  his  half- 
sneering,  half-caressing  voice.  Under  any  and  all 
conditions  she  would  have  taken  her  chances  of 
"periodic  joy  and  black  misery  "  with  Edred. 

About  those  marvelous  chapters  regarding  Pam- 
ela's life  with  Edred,  after  she  learns  that  there 
is  another  woman  in  his  life,  and  before  she  learns 
that  this  other  woman  has  a  prior  claim  upon  him, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  say  much  here;  they  should 
be  read  rather  than  discussed.  But  here,  as  else- 
where, the  point  of  interest  is  Pamela's  struggle 
against  her  own  passion,  and  she  is  ready  to  wel- 
come any  avenue  of  release.  For  a  while  she  thinks 
that  proof  of  Edred's  infidelity  would  cure  her, 
and  she  throws  herself  into  the  task  of  proving  it 
with  feverish  anxiety,  but  when  she  is  at  last  con- 
vinced he  is  untrue  her  condition  is  more  hopeless 
than  ever: 

She  despaired  of  herself,  she  hadn't  any  shame, 
any   self-respect,  any   modesty, — any   of  those   cold, 


312  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

praiseworthy   qualities   which   romance   has   for   cen- 
turies built  up  and  labeled  female  character. 

In  the  end  Edred  dies,  and  the  spell  is  broken. 
Pamela  marries  Jethro, — slow,  patient,  prosaic 
Jethro, — and  we  leave  them  to  the  tranquil  joys 
of  rural  life.  Whether  Pamela  will  remain  con- 
tented with  the  humdrum  round  of  domesticity  is 
a  problem  which  Mrs.  Dudeney  wisely  left  un- 
solved. Liddleshorn  is  a  remote  village,  and  it  is 
not  likely  a  second  Edred  will  find  his  way  thither 
to  touch  the  chords  of  passion.  And,  even  if  he 
should,  Mrs.  Dudeney  wishes  us  to  understand  that 
Pamela  is  of  the  type  of  woman  who  vibrates  in 
response  to  just  one  man  and,  he  being  dead,  no  re- 
awakening is  possible  for  her.  And  to  take  issue 
with  Mrs.  Dudeney  on  this  point  would  lead  us 
too  far  afield  from  our  subject.  But  it  is  perhaps 
worth  while  to  suggest  that  in  this  one  particular 
even  so  subtle  a  psychologist  as  she  still  has  some- 
thing to  learn. 

Men  of  Marlowe's  is  a  collection  of  miscellaneous 
short  stories,  many  of  them  bearing  internal  evi- 
dence of  having  been  written  prior  to  Folly  Cor- 
ner; and,  in  point  of  fact,  they  are  isolated,  unre- 
lated stories,  in  spite  of  the  pseudo-continuity 
which  their  author  has  sought  to  give  by  taking 
for  her  setting  one  of  the  typical  London  Inns  of 
Court,  like  the  famous  Temple  Inn,  whose  inmates 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  313 

lead  a  more  or — sometimes — less  bachelor  life,  be- 
hind their  heavy  oaken  doors. 

A  man's  oak  guards  faithfully  the  story  of  his 
life,  [she  says  in  a  prefatory  passage]  generations 
of  secrets,  of  sins,  of  sorrows,  are  held  by  these  stout 
doors, — black  and  inscrutable,  two  by  two  on  every 
landing.  The  stories  those  black  doors  could  tell! 
I  wonder  they  never  crack, — with  laughter  or  great, 
splitting  sobs. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  variety  in  these  stories 
of  commonplace  people,  a  good  deal  of  love  and 
jealousy,  a  crime  or  two,  and  a  taint  of  mysticism 
here  and  there,  as  in  "  Beyond  the  Gray  Gate." 
The  opening  tale,  "  The  One  in  Red,"  is  just  the 
sort  of  tale  which  might  be  expected  from  a 
writer  who  has  given  us  the  grim  episode  of  Gainah 
Toat  in  Folly  Corner.  Orion  was  a  mean,  weak- 
minded,  thoroughly  uninteresting  sort  of  person, 
possessed  of  neither  debts,  compromising  visitors, 
nor  delicate  difficulties ;  "  a  mean,  drab  life,"  com- 
ments Mrs.  Dudeney.  But  he  finally  puts  plenty 
of  color  into  it,  by  murdering  his  aunt,  the  "  one 
in  red,"  because  he  was  tired  of  waiting  for  her 
fortune, — quite  a  fruitless  crime,  as  it  turns  out, 
because,  aside  from  the  confession  which  conscience 
and  too  much  whisky  lead  him  to  make, — he  never 
would  have  inherited  the  money  in  any  case,  since 
she  had  willed  it  to  some  one  else. 


314  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

But  the  really  significant  stories  in  this  collec- 
tion are  the  ones  in  which  Mrs.  Dudeney  studies 
her  own  sex, — stories  like  "  Why?  "  or  "  An  Inter- 
lude," or  even  "  Arnold's  Laundress."  Unpleasant 
they  undoubtedly  are,  even  repellent,  some  readers 
may  think  them ;  for  the  author  has  painted  her 
sex  in  very  unflattering  colors,  and  quite  un- 
shrinkingly strips  off  the  veil  of  conventionalities ; 
and  all  the  while  we  feel  their  obvious,  undeniable 
truth.  Different  as  they  are,  her  types  of  women, 
dark  and  fair,  good  and  bad,  all  have  this  in  com- 
mon ;  they  are  all  introspective,  emotional  women, 
mere  bundles  of  nerves,  moods  and  mutability. 
For  instance,  there  is  Adeline  Pray  in  "Why?" 
who  had  married  Pray  because  her  first  lover  could 
not  marry  her,  and  who  wore  herself  out  in  a  few 
years  with  remorse  and  a  broken  heart,  and  on 
her  death-bed  dictated  what  her  husband  thought 
was  her  death  notice,  when  it  was  really  meant  as  a 
sort  of  farewell  message  to  her  lover.  "  The  dead 
face  tantalized  him.  The  eternal,  remorseful  ten- 
derness was  strong  on  her  lips  of  steel.  There  had 
always  been  a  sprig  of  rue  in  her  love.  Why? 
that  maddening  why,  never  to  be  answered," — 
never,  at  any  rate,  by  the  husband,  though  there 
was  one  room  in  Marlowe's  whose  paneled 
walls  might  have  told  him,  if  they  could  have 
spoken. 

After  all,  however,  "  An  Interlude  "  is  the  story 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  315 

which  will  best  bear  a  second  reading,  not  only  for 
its  own  sake,  but  because  it  contains,  so  to  speak, 
the  seed  thought  of  Folly  Corner, — the  idea  of  a 
young  woman  who,  while  knowing  all  the  value  of 
home,  tranquillity  and  the  love  of  an  honorable 
man,  is  compelled  to  jeopardize  it  all  for  the  sake 
of  another  man  whom  she  cannot  respect,  but  who 
possesses  that  peculiar  compelling  influence  which 
certain  men  have  over  this  kind  of  woman.  It 
may  be  that  the  resemblance  between  the  novel  and 
the  short  story  will  not  strike  the  average  reader ; 
the  plot,  as  a  whole,  is  quite  different,  and  the  out- 
ward contrast  is  sharp  between  Pamela  Crisp  and 
dainty,  "  dressy  "  little  Mrs.  Conifer.  But  the 
more  you  study  the  central  theme,  the  more  the 
resemblance  impresses  you.  The  story  of  "  An  In- 
terlude "  is  worth  while  outlining  briefly.  Conifer 
was  a  stockbroker,  whose  absorption  in  his  busi- 
ness left  him  little  time  to  spare  for  his  wife,  and 
she,  finding  the  hours  hanging  on  her  hands,  fell 
into  the  pernicious  habit  of  paying  surreptitious 
visits  to  Kinsman's  artistic  chambers  in  Marlowe's, 
and  partaking  of  the  dainty  tea  which  he  had 
ready  in  her  honor.  But  one  evening,  by  one  of 
those  accidents  which  will  happen  sooner  or  later, 
she  encounters  at  Kinsman's  door  Sophia  Dominy, 
the  big,  flashy  brunette  from  the  neighboring  man- 
tle shop,  who  makes  clear  her  own  prior  claim  to 
Kinsman  and  sets  forth  their  relative  positions  in 


316  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

such  very  blunt  phrases  as  to  bring  up  before  Mrs. 
Conifer  terrifying  visions  of  the  divorce  court  and 
make  an  episode  which  hitherto  had  been  only 
"  delicious,  piquant,  dangerous, — like  a  leaf  torn 
out  of  the  Decameron,"  seem  both  vulgar  and 
wicked.  "  Mrs.  Conifer  was  a  faithful  wife  again, 
in  every  thought,  directly  she  looked  into  those 
blazing  black  eyes  and  understood."  For  the  next 
four  years,  Mrs.  Conifer  is  a  model  of  discre- 
tion in  every  thought  and  deed,  but  at  last 
nemesis  overtakes  her,  in  the  shape  of  Kinsman, 
whom  the  world  has  meanwhile  treated  rather 
roughly,  and  who,  having  retained  possession  of 
her  letters,  proceeds  systematically  to  black- 
mail her.  Finally,  having  bled  the  woman  quite 
dry,  he  calls  to  show  the  letters  to  her  hus- 
band, but  is  followed  and  shot  on  the  steps  by 
Sophia  Dominy,  who  has  cherished  an  unreasoning 
jealousy  towards  Mrs.  Conifer,  and  who  kills  her- 
self immediately  afterwards.  It  is  some  time  be- 
fore Mrs.  Conifer  can  grasp  the  significance  of  this 
event,  or  realize  that  she  is  at  last  safe, — safe,  ex- 
cept for  the  package  of  letters  in  the  breast  pocket 
of  the  dead  man  lying  stretched  out  on  the  table 
downstairs ;  and  the  manner  in  which  she  nerves 
herself  to  creep  downstairs,  slippers  in  hand,  peel 
the  sheet  from  Kinsman's  face,  thrust  her  hand 
"  heavy  with  Conifer's  jewels,"  into  the  dead  man's 
coat  and  steal  her  letters,  is  a  bit  of  description 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  317 

surpassed  only  by  that  of  her  reaction  when  she 
once  more  gains  her  own  room : 

She  crept  in,  looking  furtively  round  the  firelit 
walls.  She  went  over  to  the  hearth,  dug  the  unclean 
letters  fiercely  in,  and  watched  them  burn.  There 
was  a  little  white  frock  airing  on  the  guard.  She 
took  it  up  in  her  hot  hands  and  kissed  it.  Toys 
were  all  over  the  floor;  one,  a  fur  monkey  with  one 
eye  missing  and  the  other  fiery-red,  seemed  to  blink 
up  malignantly — and  as  if  it  knew  and  would  one 
day  tell  her  children.  .  .  .  Heavy  with  shame,  think- 
ing of  those  two — things — below,  she  slipped  to  the 
floor  and  tried  to  pray — for  the  souls  of  the  dead 
and  the  peace  of  the  living.  But  her  knees  stiffened. 
She  stumbled  to  her  feet,  moaning.  A  grotesque 
memory  beat  in  on  her.  She  remembered  the  old 
superstition — that  no  witch  could  shed  a  tear;  that 
this  was  the  witches'  most  bitter  punishment.  Well, 
here  was  hers.  She  could  not  pray.  She  had  sinned, 
but  she  had  come  through  the  fire.  She  was  faithful 
to  Conifer  with  a  double  fervor.  She  had  a  high 
constancy  and  love  which  the  mere  faithful  wife,  who 
has  never  been  tempted,  cannot  attain.  Still — she 
must  bear  the  burden — of  an  interlude — all  her  days. 

This  type  of  woman,  which  Mrs.  Dudeney  has 
drawn  repeatedly  with  a  master  touch, — the  type 
of  the  weak,  yielding  woman  who  furtively  steals 
back  to  the  scene  of  former  rendezvous  simply  be- 
cause the  old,  compelling  power  of  a  burnt-out 


318  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

passion  is  still  too  strong  to  be  combated, — raises 
in  the  mind  an  insistent  question ;  namely,  whether 
Mrs.  Dudeney  herself  intended  it  to  represent  the 
average  normal  woman, — whether,  in  short,  she 
believes  that  for  every  woman  there  exists  some- 
where in  the  world  a  man  whose  voice  possesses  that 
mysterious,  compelling  power  that  will  make  her 
almost  hypnotically  do  his  will.  Spindle  and 
Plough  is  an  interesting  answer  to  this  question 
and  it  is  emphatically  in  the  negative.  In  this 
story  Mrs.  Dudeney  has  portrayed  the  opposite 
type,  the  woman  largely  lacking  in  what  the 
French  conveniently  term  temperament;  the 
woman  with  a  deep-rooted  contempt  for  love  and 
marriage  and  the  male  sex  in  general — a  contempt 
usually  based  upon  ignorance  and  immaturity. 

Shalisha  Pilgrim  is  a  big,  broad-shouldered, 
somewhat  masculine  girl  with  an  innate  spirit  of 
freedom  and  independence, — a  girl  to  whom  fresh 
air  and  outdoor  life  are  essential  and  who  would 
stifle  in  the  artificial  atmosphere  of  a  London 
drawing-room.  As  a  child,  her  ugliness  was  her 
mother's  despair;  as  a  woman,  she  has  just  fallen 
short  of  beauty,  in  spite  of  her  dark,  arching 
brows  and  her  heavy  rope  of  red-gold  hair ;  but  she 
has  that  rarer  charm  of  expression,  which  is  better 
and  more  lasting  than  any  physical  loveliness.  In- 
tolerant of  love  and  sentiment,  Shalisha  is  by 
nature  qualified  for  deep  devotion.     The  maternal 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  319 

instinct,  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  is  highly  de- 
veloped, and  she  is  impelled  to  lavish  it  upon  some- 
thing or  somebody.  So  long  as  her  father,  an  im- 
poverished and  invalid  artist,  was  alive,  she 
lavished  it  on  him.  After  his  death  she  trans- 
fers it  to  her  mother,  a  silly,  flighty,  Dresden- 
china  little  woman,  whose  mature  years  in  no  way 
interfere  with  endless  flirtations,  and  whom 
Shalisha  guards  jealously  from  a  second  mar- 
riage, looking  with  youthful  austerity  upon  the 
bare  possibility  as  a  profanation  of  her  father's 
memory.  Shalisha,  driven  by  her  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence, has  undergone  the  full  training  course 
for  landscape  gardening,  and  at  the  opening  of 
the  story  she  has  just  obtained  an  excellent  situa- 
tion in  the  country,  through  the  good  offices  of  her 
"  Godmother  Bloss," — a  piece  of  good  fortune 
which  she  welcomes  chiefly  as  an  opportunity  to 
break  off  her  mother's  latest  matrimonial  entangle- 
ment with  portly,  pompous  Mr.  Poundsberry,  a 
well-to-do  auctioneer,  who  confuses  his  aspirates 
and  drinks  his  tea  from  the  saucer. 

At  Bramble  Bye,  Mr.  Boylett's  estate,  Shalisha 
comes  in  close  personal  contact,  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life,  with  men, — two  men  in  particular,  her 
employer  and  Felix  Rule,  the  sheriff.  Both  of 
these  men,  attracted  by  the  novel  charm  of  the 
girl's  freedom,  her  masculine  independence,  her 
unconventionality,  soon  seek  to  win  her,  each  in 


320  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

his  own  way ;  and  their  attentions  vaguely  trouble 
her,  although  the  trouble  is  not  wholly  unpleasant 
to  her.  Yet  so  little  does  she  know  of  matters  of 
the  heart  that  Boylett's  proposal  takes  her  un- 
awares, and  what  Felix  says  to  her  on  the  eve  of 
his  departure  for  America  is  said  and  answered, 
and  he  is  well  on  his  journey  before  she  grasps  the 
fact  that  he  has  offered  himself  and  she  has  re- 
fused him.  Bojdett  she  refuses  with  her  eyes  wide 
open.  His  offer  means  much  to  her ;  it  means  a 
life-long  home  in  the  place  where  she  has  labored 
so  lovingly ;  it  means  the  care  of  Boylett's  or- 
phaned daughter  whom  Shalisha  longs  to  take 
under  her  maternal  wing.  But  the  price  is  too 
high,  because  it  means  also  the  sacrifice  of  her 
freedom,  the  abandonment  of  her  outdoor  life,  the 
necessity  of  fulfilling  a  wife's  obligations  to  Boy- 
lett, — a  man  who  "  is  guilty  of  the  effeminacy  of  a 
Pullman  car  "  and  "  talks  about  the  beauties  of 
nature  instead  of  feeling  and  living  them."  Be- 
sides, deep  down  in  her  heart,  under  the  austerity 
of  her  unawakened  senses,  she  already  knows  that, 
sooner  or  later,  Felix,  sensible,  plodding  English 
farmer  though  he  is,  will  return  and  claim  her  in 
spite  of  herself. 

In  point  of  fact,  Felix  does  return, — a  trans- 
formed Felix,  in  all  the  opulence  of  new  raiment, 
heavy  watch-chain  and  blazing  pin,  and  with  the 
comfortable    assurance    of    a    neat    little    fortune 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  321 

amassed  by  honest  toil.  He  makes  the  mistake  of 
taking  Shalisha's  consent  almost  for  granted  and 
blurts  out  his  plans  to  take  her  away  from  Bram- 
ble Bye,  to  lavish  jewels  on  her,  to  transport  her 
to  the  very  life  which  she  has  always  held  in  con- 
tempt. In  his  eagerness  and  impetuosity  he  gives 
her  no  time  to  collect  herself: 

He  frightened  and  chilled  her.  The  old  disquieting 
thrill  which  she  had  felt  before  under  his  touch  con- 
vulsed her  now.  She  distrusted  this  joy.  It  opened 
the  flood-gates  of  emotion.  She  didn't  want  to  be 
stirred.  She  wanted  to  lead  her  celibate,  calm  life. 
She  wanted  nothing  tangible.  He  might  love  and 
admire  and  serve  and  guard — no  more.  She  experi- 
enced an  old  maid's  prudery  and  cautious  retreat. 
She  tried  to  put  a  greater  distance  between  them. 
His  eyes,  his  hands,  ardent;  his  mouth  so  near  that 
she  could  feel  the  hot  breath  of  his  hurried  breathing 
— alarmed  her.  She  felt  herself  to  be  in  a  vague 
way  sullied. 

He  retreated  farther  than  she  wished.  He  seemed 
to  divine  the  distaste  she  felt;  perhaps  it  was  written 
on  her  twitching,  averted  face. 

"  What  do  you  want?  "  he  asked,  in  a  voice  like  a 
whip. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  returned  brokenly. 

"  Is  it  possible  that  a  woman  can  be  such  a  fool?  " 

This  is  the  way  in  which  Felix  came  and  went  a 
second  time ;  because  Shalisha,  unlike  Pamela,  was 


322  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 

not  one  of  those  women  who  sacrifice  everything 
and  come  at  the  first  careless  word  of  the  man  they 
love.  She  is  capable  of  self-surrender  to  a  high 
degree ;  but  it  must  be  on  her  own  terms  and  in  her 
own  good  time.  And  when  Felix  at  last  comes  for 
a  third  time,  stripped  of  his  fortune  and  his  finery, 
hungry  and  in  rags,  and  she  takes  him  in  and 
gives  him  a  prodigal's  welcome,  one  feels  that  the 
great  devotion  of  which  she  is  capable  and  which 
has  at  last  found  a  permanent  object  upon  which 
to  spend  itself  has  even  now  far  more  of  the  ma- 
ternal in  its  nature  than  it  has  of  the  compelling 
force  of  true  passion. 

That  there  are  volumes  among  Mrs.  Dudeney's 
later  works  that  are  not  devoid  of  interest,  it 
would  be  foolish  to  deny.  There  is  The  Battle  of 
the  Weak,  telling  how  a  young  woman  keeps  her 
promise  to  marry  a  staid  country  doctor,  although 
her  heart  is  full  of  love  for  another  man,  a  wild, 
reckless  sailor ;  how  the  sailor  goes  to  sea,  and  the 
years  pass,  and  a  child  is  born  to  her,  which,  al- 
though its  features  are  those  of  its  father,  yet  in 
voice  and  a  hundred  tricks  of  manner  day  by  day 
recalls  to  all  who  see  it  the  untamed,  roving  sailor 
who  had  filled  its  mother's  thoughts.  Then  there 
is  Rachel  Lorian,  the  tragedy  of  a  young  woman, 
whose  husband,  on  the  first  day  of  their  honey- 
moon, is  dragged  from  under  the  crumpled  wreck- 
age of  a  railway  carriage,  hopelessly  paralyzed, 


MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY  323 

yet  likely  to  live  out  the  average  allotted  span  of 
years.  And  still  again,  there  is  The  Wise  Woods, 
with  its  half-civilized,  half-gipsy  heroine,  and  the 
ineffectual,  dilettante  hero,  with  whom  she  is  mis- 
mated,  and  its  pervading  scent  of  growing  things, 
and  the  music  of  nature.  Undoubtedly,  Mrs.  Dude- 
ney  has  become  a  trained  story  teller  of  the 
second-class,  and  can  be  trusted  to  maintain  a  fair 
average  quality.  But  there  was  once  a  brief  period 
when  she  was  more  than  a  story  teller;  when  cer- 
tain aspects  of  life  gripped  her  with  an  almost 
fierce  interest ;  when  certain  ideas  clamored  for  ut- 
terance, and  in  just  two  or  three  books  found 
utterance, — books  throbbing  with  the  poignancy 
of  life,  that  deserve  to  be  saved  from  the  forgotten- 
ness  towards  which  they  are  drifting.  They  were 
obviously  the  product  of  young  years,  when  phys- 
ical perceptions  were  keener,  when  joys  and  sor- 
rows loomed  up  bigger,  when  every  budding  leaf 
and  opening  flower  were  fraught  with  momentous 
possibilities.  It  is  given  to  comparatively  few 
writers,  even  for  a  few  short  years,  to  sense  life  so 
deeply  and  so  understandingly.  And  that  is  why 
Mrs.  Dudeney's  name  is  not  out  of  place  in  a 
volume  on  the  modern  story  tellers  of  England. 


JOHN  TREVENA 

This  is  an  unpropltious  hour  in  which  to  take 
a  comprehensive  view  of  the  past  achievements  and 
future  promise  of  the  author  of  Furze  the  Cruel. 
From  his  first  book  he  revealed  himself  as  one  of 
those  favored  writers  who  are  sure  of  themselves, 
of  their  powers,  of  their  goal,  and  move  steadily 
forward,  each  new  volume  adding  another  mile- 
stone on  the  road  to  fame.  But  suddenly  he  seems 
to  have  lost  his  path,  to  have  taken  the  wrong 
turning,  like  a  traveler  lured  to  disaster  by  the 
lying  glamour  of  a  mirage.  His  latest  volume, 
Bracken,  suggests  nothing  so  much  as  the  futile 
violence  of  nightmare-ridden  sleep.  What  it  may 
lead  to  when  the  sleeper  wakes,  what  new  forms  of 
symmetry  and  beauty  lurk  in  the  chaos  of  his 
present  mood,  it  is  idle  to  speculate.  But  the  net 
impression  left  by  the  volume's  mad  mysticism  is 
that  John  Trevena  has,  like  his  own  creation,  Pen- 
doggat,  forced  his  way  into  so  dense  and  im- 
penetrable a  tangle  that  to  return  to  his  former 
road  or  struggle  through  to  a  new  one  is  equally 
impracticable.  And  this  is  really  a  pity,  because 
his  earlier  volumes,  few  as  they  are,  have  won  him 

324 


JOHN  TREVEXA 


JOHN  TREVENA  325 

a  merited  recognition  as  one  of  that  younger  group 
of  English  novelists  who  can  hardly  be  omitted 
when  mention  is  made  of  Galsworthy  and  Bennett, 
Locke  and  Snaith  and  Leonard  Merrick, — one,  it 
may  be  added,  who  has  brought  a  new  spirit  and  a 
new  strength  into  the  literature  of  Dartmoor. 

Concerning  the  life  history  and  the  personality 
of  this  writer,  who  chooses  to  sign  himself  "  John 
Trevena,"  only  a  few  scant  details  have  passed 
into  general  knowledge ;  but  these  few  constitute 
all  that  is  really  essential  to  an  understanding  of 
his  work.  We  need  only  to  remember  that  he  is  a 
bachelor,  somewhat  under  forty  years  of  age,  that 
ill-health  has  been  his  lot  for  the  greater  part  of 
this  period,  and  that  he  finally  learned  that  the 
smoky,  tainted  air  of  English  towns  acted  upon 
him  as  a  slow  poison.  Dartmoor,  with  its  high 
altitudes,  its  level,  wind-swept  stretches,  offered  a 
chance  for  recovery;  and  there,  for  several  years, 
John  Trevena  has  been  living  in  voluntary  exile  in 
a  little  isolated  cabin,  doing  all  of  the  manual 
work,  unaided,  drawing  in,  day  by  day,  deep 
draughts  of  health,  in  his  endless  wanderings  over 
the  moors,  and  finding  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
entertainment  in  studying  the  curiously  warped 
and  stunted  types  of  humanity  produced  by 
nature's  struggle  for  survival.  Quite  naturally, 
he  has  come  to  love  each  aspect  of  the  land  which 
has  given  him  back  his  health,  each  varying  phase 


326  JOHN  TREVENA 

of  its  rugged  scenery,  each  change  of  tone  and 
color  from  season  to  season,  in  sunshine  and  in 
rain.  And  it  is  not  surprising  that  this  love  of  the 
land  should  be  mirrored  back  in  his  books,  with  an 
artist's  enthusiasm,  an  artist's  sureness  of  brush- 
stroke and  truth  of  color.  And  it  was  also  to  be 
foreseen  that  the  people  of  the  moors  would  go  into 
his  books  just  as  he  sees  them,  with  an  uncompro- 
mising literalness  of  detail  that  might  well  give 
offense — and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has  once 
at  least  so  far  antagonized  his  neighbors  that  he 
was  forced  to  change  his  residence  with  undignified 
haste,  and  find  lodgment  in  a  new  and  distant 
locality. 

All  this  is  of  genuine  interest,  not  as  personal 
gossip,  but  as  the  underlying  explanation  of  his 
novels  in  substance,  in  spirit  and  in  technique.  It 
is  only  natural  that  he  should  challenge  compari- 
son with  Mr.  Eden  Phillpotts,  since  their  fields  of 
activity  so  largely  intersect.  There  is  in  each 
that  same  artistic  sense  of  landscape  beauty,  of 
the  wonderful  softness  of  nature,  seen  through  a 
shimmering  haze  of  English  sunshine,  or  a  slant- 
ing veil  of  English  rain.  But  when  it  comes  to  the 
human  life  in  the  stories,  one  feels  at  once  how 
radically  far  apart  these  two  authors  really  are. 
Both  of  them  picture  a  phase  of  the  English 
peasantry,  a  people  who  live  their  lives  in  closest 
touch  with  the  soil  to  which  they  were  born,  be- 


JOHN  TREVENA  327 

cause  they  do  not  know,  and  never  can  know,  any 
other  life.  And  both  Mr.  Phillpotts  and  Mr.  Tre- 
vena  have  studied  their  people  closely  and  faith- 
fully, without  delusion  and  without  malice ;  the 
portraiture  of  each  is  a  fine  example  of  honest  and 
unsparing  realism.  And  yet  the  difference  between 
these  two  authors  is  fundamental,  because  it  is  the 
difference  of  their  point  of  view.  Mr.  Phillpotts 
identifies  himself  with  the  people  of  whom  he  writes. 
He  and  his  characters  and  his  readers  are  all  held 
together  in  one  big,  universal  bond  of  understand- 
ing and  pity.  His  very  titles  symbolize  his  in- 
dulgent attitude.  The  people  to  him  are  Children 
of  the  Mist — not  abnormal,  not  wicked,  but  simply 
immature ;  the  very  land  on  which  they  toil  out 
their  narrow  lives  is  The  Good  Red  Earth.  John 
Trevena,  on  the  contrary,  remains  always  an  alien. 
The  natives  are  always  to  him  objects  of  special 
study,  but  rather  in  the  spirit  with  which  a  bot- 
anist studies  a  new  species  of  lichen  than  with 
any  sense  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  This  is  not 
intended  to  imply  that  Mr.  Trevena's  people  are 
lacking  in  individuality.  On  the  contrary,  they 
are  intensely,  often  painfully,  alive.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  one  actually  suffers  more  over 
the  unconscious  cruelty  of  nature  and  the  inhu- 
manity of  man  in  Mr.  Trevena's  pages  than  in  any 
of  the  more  sympathetic  pictures  of  life  that  Mr. 
Phillpotts  has  given  us.     But  this  does  not  alter 


328  JOHN  TREVENA 

the  fact  that  Mr.  Trevena's  attitude  is  quite  in- 
differently objective;  he  is  not  the  compassionate 
Samaritan,  but  the  vivisectionist,  finding  an  ab- 
sorbing interest  even  in  suffering  and  disease  and 
death.  His  whole  attitude  toward  the  people  of 
the  moors  is  well  summed  up  in  a  single  paragraph 
from  the  strongest  and  best  of  his  four  books, 
Furze  the  Cruel: 

There  is  not  a  person  living  who  has  not  done  an 
act  of  cruelty.  It  is  impossible  to  refrain  from  it. 
.  .  .  Upon  a  wild  upland  passions  are  fiercer,  just 
as  physical  strength  is  greater.  Tender  lilies  would 
not  live  upon  the  moor,  and  there  is  no  use  looking 
for  them.  They  are  down  in  the  valleys.  Upon  the 
moor,  there  is  the  granite,  the  spiny  gorse,  the  rugged 
heather.  It  is  no  use  looking  for  the  qualities  of  the 
lily  in  those  men  who  are  made  of  the  granite,  the 
gorse  and  the  heather. 

It  is  not  surprising,  in  view  of  this  confessed 
attitude,  that  there  is  a  vein  of  cruelty  running 
through  all  of  Mr.  Trevena's  books ;  characters 
grown  inhuman  from  greed,  like  Pendoggat  in 
Furze  the  Cruel,  inhuman  from  fanaticism  like 
Uncle  Gifford  in  Heather.  One  recalls  a  long 
haunting  sequence  of  pitiful  figures,  derelicts  of 
humanity,  misshapen  and  stunted,  eking  out  starv- 
ing lives  with  the  toil  of  raw  and  bleeding  fingers. 
And  yet,  the  net  impression  left  behind  by  John 


JOHN  TREVENA  329 

Trevena's  books  is  that  of  high  ideals,  fine,  clean 
living  and  the  wholesome  tonic  of  pure  air  and 
heaven-sent  sunshine.  And  one  naturally  asks  by 
what  means  he  achieves  this  paradox. 

The  answer  is  quite  simple.  Mr.  Trevena  in 
writing  his  books  is  like  a  gardener  who,  having 
found  a  fair  and  sunny  garden,  elects  to  raise  in  it 
certain  rare  blossoms,  refusing  to  be  troubled  by 
the  unsightliness  of  mold  and  compost,  of  grubs 
and  earthworms  in  the  soil.  It  may  be  said, 
without  unfairness,  that  his  separate  volumes 
practically  all  conform  to  a  certain  simple  for- 
mula. There  is  always  a  man  from  the  outside 
world,  an  alien  like  the  author  himself;  and  there 
is  always  some  woman  who,  if  not  actually  from 
the  outside  world,  is  by  birth  or  training  not  wholly 
of  the  moor.  Sometimes  the  man  is  a  transient 
visitor  like  Aubrey  Bellamy,  in  Furze  the  Cruel, 
who  loves  and  wins  Boodles,  the  beautiful,  name- 
less waif  of  unknown  parentage ;  or  Brian  Challa- 
combe,  in  Arminel  of  the  West,  who  follows  the 
line  of  least  resistance,  and  thinks  lightly  of 
woman's  honor  until  he  meets  Arminel  Zaple, 
strong  and  pure  as  the  moorland  wind,  and  wise 
with  some  years  of  outside  schooling.  Or  again, 
the  man  is  living  in  self-imposed  exile,  after  the 
fashion  of  Mr.  Trevena,  himself,  like  John  Bur- 
rough  in  A  Pixy  in  Petticoats,  companionless  save 
for  Peter,  Prince  o'  Cats,  until  Beatrice  Pentreath 


330  JOHN  TREVENA 

comes  elusively  and  tantalizingly  into  his  life;  or 
George  Brunacombe,  in  Heather,  with  only  Bubo, 
the  owl,  to  share  his  loneliness,  until  he  brings  home 
Winnie  Shazell  to  nurse  her  back  to  health  and  give 
the  lie  to  the  physician's  pronouncement  that  she 
is  doomed.  In  all  four  novels,  what  one  lingers 
over  while  reading  and  is  glad  to  evoke  afterwards 
in  memory  is  the  series  of  pictures  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  glad  because  they  are  young,  because  they 
are  together,  because  they  are  drinking  in  new 
health  and  new  hope,  far  away  from  the  grime  and 
smoke  of  towns,  the  physical  and  moral  unclean- 
ness  of  crowded  humanity,  and  enjoying  the  splen- 
did freedom  of  spacious  reaches  of  rugged  land 
and  open  sky. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  imply  that  these  four  vol- 
umes are  of  uniform  merit.  On  the  contrary,  John 
Trevena  showed  in  them  a  steady  growth  which 
promised  well  for  his  future  work.  With  each 
volume,  he  became  a  little  closer  in  touch  with 
his  materials,  a  little  more  conscious  of  the  impor- 
tance of  careful  construction  and  technique.  A 
Pixy  in  Petticoats  is  easily  the  most  haphazard 
of  his  volumes,  the  one  that  shifts  its  key  most 
unexpectedly,  the  one  that  depends  most  largely 
upon  the  element  of  chance.  For  three-quarters 
of  its  length  it  is  a  mere  light  and  elusive  love 
tale;  then  suddenly  comes  calamity  out  of  a  clear 
sky,  and  a  painful  psychological  problem  is  thrust 


JOHN  TREVENA  -  331 

forward ; — what  effect  will  the  discovery  that  a 
man  is  hideously  disfigured  for  life  have  upon  a 
woman  whose  love  for  him  began  largely  in  ad- 
miration of  his  good  looks?  And,  after  all,  this 
problem  is  not  solved  because  chance  again  inter- 
venes to  end  it  brutally  with  the  man's  death. 

Arminel  of  the  West  shows  already  an  advance, 
a  growing  interest  in  more  serious  and  widespread 
problems.  The  central  idea  is  the  fallacy  of  the 
sheltered  life  form  of  education.  More  spe- 
cifically, the  theme  of  Arminel  of  the  West  is 
the  entanglement  of  a  certain  Brian  Challa- 
combe,  a  stranger  who  comes  to  the  moors  for  his 
health,  in  the  lives  of  two  girls  of  the  district — 
Nona  Wistman,  the  daughter  of  a  highly  culti- 
vated but  fanatical  preacher ;  and  Arminel,  the  il- 
legitimate child  of  a  certain  Dartmoor  John,  a 
peddler  of  oil,  with  a  small  holding  of  land  on 
the  moors  that  he  has  acquired,  not  by  ancestral 
right,  as  other  commoners  do,  but  by  craft  and 
guile.  By  birth  and  breeding  and  opportunities  in 
life,  Nona  should  have  been  a  fine,  clean-souled, 
cultured  type  of  girl,  and  Arminel  an  underbred, 
bold-mannered  upstart.  Mr.  Trevena,  however, 
evidently  has  his  own  very  excellent  theories  about 
the  evils  of  the  "  sheltered  life  "  method  of  educa- 
tion. The  fanatical  Mr.  Wistman  has  chosen  to 
bring  up  his  daughter  in  fundamental  ignorance 
of  the  primary  physiological  facts  of  life;  with- 


332  JOHN  TREVENA 

out  consulting  her  wishes,  her  temperament,  her 
mental  and  physical  needs,  he  predestines  her  to  a 
life  in  the  cloister;  and  when  she  comes  to  him, 
full  of  the  irrepressible  enthusiasms  of  youth,  the 
tumultuous  joy  of  living,  to  ask  him  questions  that 
arise  naturally  and  spontaneously  to  her  lips,  and 
to  demand  some  share  of  the  freedom  and  priv- 
ileges that  are  freely  accorded  to  other  girls,  he 
puts  her  off  with  subterfuges  and  lies.  Arminel, 
on  the  other  hand,  growing  up  haphazard  to  run 
wild  like  the  Dartmoor  furze  and  glean  a  knowl- 
edge of  life  as  she  will,  develops,  like  the  furze, 
strong  and  sturdy,  with  an  inborn  power  of  self- 
protection,  a  sharpness  of  tongue  and  prickliness 
of  manner  that  will  keep  off  an  unwelcome  touch. 
Yet,  because  of  this  free  untrammeled  life,  she 
has  grown  up  brave  and  true  and  tender-hearted 
within,  a  creature  whom  people  come  to  love  in 
spite  of  prejudice.  While  Nona,  on  the  other 
hand,  because  of  her  repressed  life,  is  full  of  a 
spirit  of  revolt,  ready  at  a  touch  to  blaze  out  into 
defiance  of  all  laws,  human  and  divine.  These  are 
the  reasons  why,  when  Brian  Challacombe  comes 
to  Dartmoor,  he  can  win  Nona  without  the  asking 
and  with  no  saving  ceremony  of  the  church,  while 
Arminel  he  can  hardly  win  at  all,  though  he  asks 
in  all  humbleness  and  with  every  honorable  intent. 
But  Challacombe  is  a  weakling,  morally  as  well  as 
physically ;  and,  although  Arminel  has  flourished 


JOHN  TREVENA  333 

under  adversity,  growing  stronger  and  sweeter, 
like  the  heather  itself  under  the  storm  and  stress 
of  sweeping  winds,  not  even  her  hardly  won  love 
can  inspire  him  to  a  true  manliness.  We  leave  him 
wavering,  temporizing,  impotently  seeking,  when 
too  late,  to  do  what  is  fair  and  right,  and  con- 
fronted on  the  one  hand  by  an  angry  father,  de- 
manding that  he  shall  make  the  daughter  the  tardy 
reparation  of  marriage,  and  on  the  other  by  the 
lawful  claims  of  the  other  girl,  whom  he  has 
secretly  wedded  yet  does  not  dare  openly  to  ac- 
knowledge, because  of  her  lowly  origin.  In  spite 
of  its  big  advance  upon  A  Pixy  in  Petticoats,  there 
is  about  Arminel  of  the  West  a  certain  incon- 
clusiveness  which  shows  the  apprentice  hand,  the 
failure  of  the  young  artist  to  take  his  own  full 
measure. 

In  Furze  the  Cruel  and  in  Heather  and  Granite 
which  followed  it,  we  find  the  author  deliberately 
undertaking  a  task  of  far  bigger  magnitude,  a 
trilogy  of  epic  sweep  in  its  conception,  with  a  wise 
and  easily  comprehended  symbolism  underlying  it. 
As  Mr.  Trevena  himself  explains  it,  "Almost 
everywhere  on  Dartmoor  are  Furze,  Heather  and 
Granite.  The  Furze  seems  to  suggest  Cruelty, 
the  Heather  Endurance,  and  the  Granite  Strength. 
The  Furze  is  destroyed  by  fire,  but  grows  again; 
the  Heather  is  torn  by  winds,  but  blossoms  again ; 
the  Granite  is  worn  away  imperceptibly  by  the 


334  JOHN  TREVENA 

rain."  In  these  three  symbols,  he  finds  typified  the 
dominant  traits  of  the  Dartmoor  folk,  as  he  has 
come  to  know  them, — perhaps,  also,  in  a  broader 
way,  the  traits  which  everywhere,  and  at  all  times, 
have  had  the  largest  share  in  the  molding  of  so- 
ciety and  of  nations.  And  in  making  a  trilogy  of 
these  three  symbols,  he  seems  to  be  trying  to  say 
that  the  world  is  not  wholly  cruel,  nor  is  the  vic- 
tory always  to  the  strong,  nor  always  to  patience 
and  long  suffering.  But  from  the  blending  of 
these  three  things,  we  get  a  pretty  good  present- 
ment of  real  life.  In  other  words,  for  the  purpose 
of  his  art,  he  has  chosen  to  present  three  con- 
trasted aspects  of  life,  each,  taken  by  itself,  a  little 
extreme,  a  little  violent  in  its  effects, — much  after 
the  fashion  that  experimenters  in  color  photogra- 
phy make  three  separate  transparencies,  in  red, 
green  and  violet,  neither  of  them  claiming  to  be 
quite  true  to  life,  but  all  three  producing,  when 
blended,  a  faithful  reproduction  of  each  delicate 
tint  and  shadow. 

Furze  the  Cruel,  considered  in  this  light,  simply 
as  one  of  a  succession  of  screens  through  which  the 
finished  picture  is  to  be  viewed,  is  not  merely  a 
piece  of  clear-sighted,  virile  realism ;  it  is  in  many 
ways  an  astonishing  book ;  one  may  even  say,  with- 
out fear  of  contradiction,  that  no  other  book  has 
succeeded  in  symbolizing  the  cruelty  of  life  with 
such  poignant  and  convincing  power,  since  Frank 


JOHN  TREVENA  335 

Norris  first  burst  upon  the  world  with  the  crude 
genius  of  McTeague.  Furze  the  Cruel  is  not  a 
book  which  profits  by  a  minute  analysis  of  plot. 
There  are  a  score  of  tangled  threads  of  destiny, 
crossing  and  recrossing,  as  the  threads  of  destiny 
always  do  cross  and  recross  in  real  life.  It  is  one 
of  those  books  that  are  spread  over  a  wide  canvas, 
and  give  you  a  sense  of  crowds  and  multitudes  and 
clashing  interests ;  there  is  no  one  man  or  woman 
in  it  whom  you  may  single  out  as  the  central  figure ; 
indeed,  if  half  a  dozen  different  readers  should 
make  the  attempt,  they  would  probably  hit  upon 
half  a  dozen  different  heroes  or  heroines,  and  not 
be  quite  satisfied  with  any  one  of  them.  The  truth 
is  that  the  real  protagonist  of  the  book  is  the 
Furze  itself,  the  incarnate  symbol  of  the  spirit  of 
cruelty  in  nature  and  in  man — it  is  the  Furze  that 
you  must  think  of,  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  as 
you  read — the  Furze  that  defies  extermination ; 
that,  no  matter  how  you  hack  and  dig  and  burn  its 
roots,  springs  up  again,  grim  and  indomitable ; 
and  if  the  chief  characters  in  the  book  are  morally 
warped  and  misshapen,  it  is  because  they,  too, 
have  sprung  from  the  soil  which  gives  birth  to  the 
Furze ;  and  when,  in  the  end,  Pendoggat,  the  cruel- 
est,  thorniest  man  of  them  all,  meets  a  hideous 
fate,  it  is  no  small  tribute  to  the  crude  force  of 
the  story  to  say  that  one  feels  there  is  a  certain 
symbolic  justice  that  he  should  receive  his  pun- 


336  JOHN  TREVENA 

ishment  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Furze 
itself.  If  for  no  other  reason  than  for  the 
episode  of  the  fate  of  Pendoggat,  it  should  take  a 
permanent  place  in  any  treatise  on  the  technique  of 
fiction,  as  an  almost  unique  illustration  of  the  art 
of  making  the  punishment  fit  the  crime.  The 
hideous  picture  of  Pendoggat,  miser,  coward,  thief, 
without  one  tender,  redeeming  trait,  one  vestige  of 
a  moral  sense,  caught  at  last  in  the  very  center  of 
a  huge  clump  of  burning  furze,  struggling  and 
writhing  in  its  tangles  like  a  wild  beast,  torn  and 
scarred  by  its  briars,  and  finally  feeling  the  blast- 
ing breath  of  the  flames  roll  past  to  leave  him  a 
quivering,  blackened,  blinded  thing,  still  grasping 
in  his  helpless  fingers  the  ashes  of  the  fortune  for 
which  he  had  sinned — this  picture  in  its  relentless 
grimness  recalls  only  one  parallel  in  our  recent 
fiction ;  that  of  the  death  of  S.  Behrman  in  The 
Octopus,  by  Frank  Norris,  in  which  the  man  who 
for  years  has  robbed  others  of  their  rightful  profit 
in  wheat,  robbed  them  of  land  and  money  and  of 
hope,  at  last  pays  a  righteous  penalty  in  the 
black  depths  of  the  hold  of  a  freight  steamer,  slip- 
ping and  scrambling  and  writhing  through  the  lin- 
gering agony  of  strangulation  under  the  steady, 
relentless  downpour  of  unnumbered  tons  of  wheat. 
Undoubtedly,  Furze  the  Cruel  still  stands  as  its 
author's  biggest  achievement,  just  as  the  first 
volume  in  the  Epic  of  the  Wheat  was  the  biggest 


JOHN  TREVENA  337 

book  of  Norris,  the  man  with  whom  it  seems  in- 
evitable to  compare  him.  They  have  in  common  a 
love  of  big  ideas,  recurrent  symbols,  a  dogged  in- 
sistence that  drives  home  a  meaning  by  suggest- 
ing the  same  thought  in  many  different  forms. 
Also  they  have  in  common  a  soaring  fancy,  the 
gift  of  seeing  visions  beyond  their  power  to  repro- 
duce. Already  in  Heather  there  is  a  sense  of  some- 
thing wanting;  the  brutal  strength  of  Furze  the 
Cruel  would  have  been  out  of  place,  but  another 
kind  of  strength  was  needed,  and  it  is  not  there. 
Heather  has  a  number  of  commendable  qualities, 
but  it  is  not  a  strong  book.  In  fact,  of  all  his 
volumes  it  is  the  one  which  has  faded  out  most 
rapidly,  leaving  only  the  faintest  of  blurs  upon 
the  memory  of  the  present  writer.  Curiously 
enough,  it  called  forth,  at  the  time  of  its  appear- 
ance, more  favorable  comment  than  its  predecessor. 
A  possible  explanation  of  this  is  that  in  Heather 
we  have,  in  addition  to  the  Dartmoor  folk, — who, 
as  a  steady  diet,  eventually  weary  the  mental 
palate, — the  inmates  of  a  sanitarium,  people  of 
various  grades  of  society  and  coming  from  widely 
separated  corners  of  England,  but  all  having  in 
common  the  quality  of  representing  the  outside 
point  of  view,  of  making  the  reader  feel  that  even 
on  the  wind-swept  moors  he  is  still  in  touch  with 
the  world  at  large.  But  to  one  who  reads  be- 
tween the  lines,  it  looks  as  though  the  Dartmoor 


338  JOHN  TREVENA 

folk  had  by  this  time  begun  to  pall  upon  Mr.  Tre- 
vena  himself, — and  you  cannot  write  entertain- 
ingly of  what  has  ceased  to  interest  you. 

Granite,  the  third  volume  in  the  trilogy,  has  not 
been  published  in  America,  and  I  have  not  had 
access  to  the  English  edition.  It  is,  of  course,  not 
only  uncritical  but  unfair  to  draw  conclusions 
from  so  arbitrary  and  erratic  a  criterion  as  the 
non-placing  of  American  book-rights  to  an  English 
novel.  Yet  the  failure  to  publish  the  third  volume 
of  a  series,  thus  leaving  the  trilogy  a  dismembered 
torso,  suggests  a  suspicion  that  the  falling  off 
already  apparent  in  Heather,  may  have  been 
cumulative  in  Granite. 

There  remains  only  Bracken,  which,  if  it  came 
from  an  unknown  writer,  would  call  for  no  men- 
tion at  all,  but  which,  because  it  represents  a 
strange  and  regrettable  aberration  on  the  part  of 
a  man  of  serious  promise,  seems  to  demand  a  vigor- 
ous protest.  It  possesses  the  dubious  distinction 
of  being  the  most  repulsive  book  that  I  have  read  in 
many  years.  In  Furze  the  Cruel,  Mr.  Trevena 
first  gave  evidence  of  a  tendency  to  see  and  picture 
life  symbolically.  But  Bracken  is  symbolism  run- 
ning amuck,  a  weird,  creepy,  madhouse  symbolism, 
suggestive  of  things  in  heaven  and  earth  of  which 
it  is  not  good  to  dream  in  any  man's  philosophy. 
That  the  book  has  a  morbid,  unclean,  uncanny  sort 
of  strength  it  would  be  idle  to  deny.     There  are 


JOHN  TREVENA  339 

single  sentences  in  it  that  send  little  shuddering 
waves  of  revulsion  and  dread  up  and  down  the 
spinal  column ;  there  are  chapters  that  do  not  con- 
duce to  sleep.  Now,  the  only  excuse  a  writer  can 
offer  for  inflicting  upon  his  readers  a  succession  of 
ugly  pictures  of  mental  and  moral  depravity,  hyp- 
notic powers  abused  to  evil  ends,  a  whole  gamut  of 
sin  and  sensuality,  is  that  he  has  some  criticism 
upon  life  which  he  can  express  in  this  way  and  in 
no  other, — and  furthermore,  he  must  succeed  in 
expressing  it  clearly.  The  great  and  unpardon- 
able fault  of  Bracken  is,  not  that  it  is  unpleasant, 
but  that  it  fails  to  be  intelligible.  The  symbolism 
of  the  title  is  simple  enough,  the  trouble  does  not 
begin  there.  Bracken,  the  rank,  riotous,  rapid- 
growing  fern-plant,  sole  survivor  in  England  of 
the  carboniferous  period,  stands  as  a  link  with  the 
past,  a  symbol  of  the  primordial,  a  reminder  of 
the  stability  of  life  on  earth,  and  of  the  compara- 
tively narrow  space  that  separates  the  cave  man 
from  his  brother  of  to-day.  But  it  is  when  we 
penetrate  a  little  beyond  the  opening  chapter, 
heavy-laden  with  its  title  of  "  Cryptogamous,"  and 
try  to  follow  the  mental  processes  of  Jasper  Ram- 
ridge,  staid  man  of  letters  who  turns  astrologer; 
of  Cuthbert  Orton,  who,  from  sullen  schoolboy,  un- 
naturally wise,  becomes  materialist,  sensualist, 
whose  one  cult  is  himself;  of  Claud  Yalland,  con- 
tented to  live  in  squalor,  so  that  he  may  be  a 


340  JOHN  TREVENA 

poet;  of  Theodore  Vipont,  the  simple,  rabbit-like 
little  antiquary,  with  his  passion  for  old  pewter 
and  his  passion  for  his  only  child,  Margaret; — 
that  we  find  ourselves  losing  our  bearings  in  a  fog 
of  words.  From  a  long  series  of  repellent  scenes, 
just  a  few  facts  stand  out  clear:  That  Margaret 
Vipont  is  a  sort  of  female  Dr.  Jekyll,  with  three 
personalities  instead  of  two;  that  originally  the 
spiritual  side  of  her  nature  is  uppermost,  that  she 
is  a  sensitive,  tremulous,  frail  little  creature, 
moved  to  emotions  that  are  almost  pain,  by  the 
song  of  a  bird,  the  fragrance  of  a  flower ;  that  un- 
der the  malignant  spell  of  Cuthbert  Orton,  the 
spirit  vanishes  and  the  flesh  awakens,  and  without 
warning  she  becomes  a  foul-mouthed,  vulgar 
termagant,  utterly  unmoral,  an  offense  against 
decency;  and  that  when  Jasper  Ramridge's 
stronger  influence  overmasters  that  of  Cuthbert, 
both  spirit  and  flesh  make  way  for  mind,  and  Mar- 
garet becomes  a  sexless,  soulless  thinking  machine, 
without  emotion  and  without  mercy,  and  avenges 
herself  for  a  ruined  life  in  a  way  that  leaves  no 
record  beyond  a  few  transient  bubbles  in  a  lonely 
swamp. 

Such  are  the  impressions  left  by  this  huge, 
unwieldy  product  of  misdirected  effort.  It  leaves 
one  asking  impotently  under  what  spell  Mr. 
Trevena  can  have  fallen  that  he  should  forswear 
his    old    creed    and    fall    to    worshipping    at    the 


JOHN  TREVENA  341 

shrines  of  false  gods.  It  is  to  be  fervently  hoped 
that  this  is  only  a  temporary  aberration.  But  at 
least  he  once  gave  us  Furze  the  Cruel,  and  he  can- 
not take  it  from  us,  even  though  he  should  write 
a  score  of  Brackens. 


ROBERT  HICHENS 

It  is  almost  a  score  of  years  since  Mr.  Robert 
Hichens  first  sprang  into  local  notoriety  through 
The  Green  Carnation,  which  set  all  London  buzzing 
hotly  anent  the  identity  of  its  bold  literary  and 
social  lampoons.  It  was  just  ten  years  later  that 
he  obtained  at  last  an  international  recognition, 
with  The  Garden  of  Allah,  in  which  for  the  first 
time,  and  perhaps  for  the  last,  the  inherent  big- 
ness of  his  theme  and  the  titanic  majesty  of  his 
setting  shook  him  out  of  his  studied  pose  of  aloof- 
ness and  sardonic  cynicism,  and  raised  him  to  un- 
expected heights.  And  almost  at  the  close  of  a 
second  decade,  Mr.  Hichens  visited  America,  to 
find  himself,  for  the  passing  hour,  one  of  the  most 
widely  discussed  of  modern  novelists,  with  his  latest 
novel  giving  promise  of  becoming  a  "  best  seller," 
his  earlier  triumph,  The  Garden  of  Allah,  demand- 
ing a  second  recognition  in  dramatic  form,  and  he 
himself  receiving  the  doubtful  tribute  of  full-page 
interviews  in  the  Sunday  supplements.  Accord- 
ingly, Mr.  Hichens  seems  to  be  one  of  the  contem- 
porary British  story  tellers  about  whom  it  is  dis- 
tinctly worth  while   to   ask:    How  much  of  this 

342 


ROBERT  HICHKXS 


ROBERT  HICHENS  343 

popular  acclaim  is  merited  on  sound  literary 
grounds,  and  how  much  of  it  is  not? 

Before  attempting  to  answer  specifically  this 
natural  and  legitimate  question,  it  seems  profitable 
to  call  attention  to  the  treatment  which  Mr.  Hich- 
ens  has  received  at  the  hands  of  his  critics  during 
the  past  eighteen  years  as  an  illuminating  example 
of  the  average  professional  reviewer's  shortness  of 
memory  and  lack  of  prophetic  intuition.  A  glance 
over  the  files  of  the  leading  English  literary  re- 
views leaves  the  reader  amazed  at  the  suavity  with 
which  the  critics  of  Mr.  Hichens's  more  recent 
popular  triumphs  ignore  the  many  harsh  asper- 
sions they  cast  upon  his  earlier  volumes,  and  the 
completeness  with  which  most  of  them  seem  to  have 
forgotten  their  one-time  aversion  to  certain  salient 
features  of  his  style,  his  technique  and  his  attitude 
towards  life,  all  of  which  are  just  as  marked  and 
most  of  them  just  as  offensive  to-day  as  in  the 
days  when  he  was  trying  to  startle  a  sated  public 
into  attention,  by  eccentricities  like  Flames,  The 
Londoners  and  The  Slave. 

For,  if  we  examine  Mr.  Hichens  with  dispas- 
sionate frankness,  refusing  to  be  dazzled  by  those 
physical  and  moral  mirages  of  the  desert,  of  which 
he  possesses  the  incomparable  and  magic  trick,  we 
must  realize  that,  although  he  has  gained  im- 
mensely in  sheer  craftsmanship,  and  although  his 
instinct  for  the  unerring  right  word  has  become 


344  ROBERT  HICHENS 

surer  with  practice,  his  verbal  color  more  bril- 
liantly lavish,  his  style  more  fluent  and  less  epi- 
grammatically  crystalline,  his  development  has 
nevertheless  been  peculiarly  homogeneous  and  con- 
sistent. That  he  has  grown,  it  would  be  idle  to 
deny ;  but  the  growth  has  been  logical,  and  on  cer- 
tain definite  and  predestined  lines.  His  gifts,  and 
some  of  his  faults  as  well,  have  attained  ampler 
dimensions  with  the  passage  of  years ;  but  gifts 
and  faults  alike,  there  is  scarcely  one  of  them,  the 
seeds  of  which  might  not  have  been  found  already 
germinating  and  taking  vigorous  root  in  the  now 
almost  forgotten  Green  Carnation.  It  is  worth 
while,  as  a  bit  of  pertinent  literary  history,  to  call 
to  mind  the  terms  in  which  Mr.  Arthur  Waugh 
first  brought  this  volume  to  the  attention  of  Ameri- 
can readers,  in  his  monthly  London  letter  to  the 
New  York  Critic: 

At  last  London  has  a  sensation.  The  quiet  of  the 
early  autumn  is  broken  by  the  explosion  of  a  genuine 
bombshell,  and  every  one  is  rushing  to  read  The 
Green  Carnation.  ...  It  is  a  satire,  brilliant  and 
scintillating,  upon  the  literary  and  social  affectations 
of  the  hour;  and  a  more  daring,  impertinent  and  al- 
together clever  piece  of  work  has  not  been  produced 
for  many  years.  .  .  .  The  writer  remains  anonymous 
and  his  preference  for  secrecy  is  not  surprising,  for 
if  it  is  possible  for  good-humored  satire  to  make 
enemies,  he  would  scarcely  find  a  friend  left.     No- 


ROBERT  HICHENS  345 

body  is  spared.  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde  is,  as  the  title  im- 
plies, the  principal  butt  of  the  brochure,  but  almost 
every  conspicuous  writer  and  personage  is  touched  to 
the  quick. 

From  the  very  nature  of  its  naked  and  un- 
ashamed personalities,  this  first  volume  was 
handled  rather  gingerly  by  the  reviewers,  most  of 
whom  were  fain  to  dismiss  it,  after  the  euphemistic 
manner  of  the  Academy,  as  a  mere  "  caricature  of 
an  affectation  in  life  and  literature,  an  abnormal- 
ity, a  worship  of  abstract  and  scarlet  sin,  which 
must  by  its  very  nature  pass  away  with  the  per- 
sonality that  first  flaunted  it  before  a  wondering, 
half-attracted,  half-revolted  world."  To-day  the 
unwholesome  interest  of  its  theme  has  passed  away 
like  a  whiff  of  foul  gas ;  and  in  its  place  remains 
the  interest  of  the  human  document,  for  it  shows 
that  the  author  was  even  then,  just  as  he  is  to-day, 
concerned  primarily  with  the  abnormalities  of  life, 
seeking  by  preference  the  tainted  mind,  the 
stunted  soul,  the  pathological  body.  In  spite  of 
a  life-long  straining  after  startling  effects,  Mr. 
Hichens  has  no  great  and  original  fertility  of 
plot.  Many  another  novelist  before  him  has  built 
stories  upon  the  themes  of  metempsychosis ;  of  a 
woman's  slavery  to  the  glitter  of  jewels  or  to  the 
fool's  paradise  of  opium ;  of  hereditary  fires  of 
passion,  that  betray  a  bridegroom  on  his  honey- 
moon into  forgetting  the  marriage  service,  or  a 


346  ROBERT  HICHENS 

renegade  monk  into  breaking  his  vows.  Mr.  Hich- 
ens's  distinction  lies  rather  in  his  special  gift  for 
taking  world-old  problems  and  modernizing  them, 
warming  them  over  to  suit  a  jaded  palate,  with  a 
dash  of  the  decadent  spirit  and  a  garniture  of 
Fleurs  de  Mai.  Any  one  who  has  read  Henry 
James's  Ambassadors  must  remember  the  sensa- 
tions of  the  mild  and  scholarly  Mr.  Strethers  dur- 
ing his  first  afternoon  in  Chad  Newsome's  Paris 
apartment,  while  he  listens  to  the  conversation 
going  on  blithely  and  carelessly  around  him,  and 
wonders  helplessly  whether  all  those  well-dressed, 
well-mannered  guests  really  mean  all  the  unspeak- 
able things  that  they  seem  to  be  uttering,  or 
whether  his  own  mind  has  suddenly  become 
strangely  perverted  and  is  playing  him  tricks. 
The  episode  inevitably  comes  to  mind  in  connec- 
tion with  Mr.  Hichens's  novels,  for  it  precisely 
portrays  the  impression  that,  with  malice  afore- 
thought, he  contrives  to  leave  upon  the  mind  of  his 
readers.  He  seems  to  delight  in  bringing  them  to 
a  sudden  full  stop,  with  a  gasping  protest, 
"  Surely,  he  never  could  mean  that !  " — and  then, 
at  the  turn  of  the  page,  leaving  them  with  a  be- 
wildered and  shamefaced  wonderment  how  they 
could  have  entertained,  even  for  a  moment,  such 
outrageously  indecent  thoughts ! 

That  this  is  no  arbitrary  and  one-sided  view  of 
Robert  Hichens,   any   one  may   readily   convince 


ROBERT  HICHENS  347 

himself  by  merely  taking  the  trouble  to  glance  over 
the  contemporary  reviews  of  his  several  books. 
These  reviews,  with  few  exceptions,  and  quite  re- 
gardless of  their  favorable  or  unfavorable  tone, 
form  a  rich  thesaurus  of  the  various  English 
synonyms, — and  sometimes  the  French  synonyms 
as  well,  when  Anglo-Saxon  resources  run  low, — 
of  such  words  as  morbid,  neurotic,  pathological, 
decadent,  salacious  and  unclean.  It  is  true  that 
since  the  appearance  of  The  Garden  of  Allah,  less 
emphasis  has  been  laid  upon  the  unwholesomeness 
of  Mr.  Hichens's  themes,  and  more  upon  the  vivid 
color  and  scintillating  brilliance  of  his  style.  It 
may  even  be  conceded  that  there  is  justice  in  this 
change,  and  that,  on  the  whole,  his  later  books  are 
more  normal,  more  human,  than  his  earlier. 
Nevertheless,  the  taint  persists.  There  is  no  es- 
caping the  obvious  fact  that  his  interest  is  always 
in  the  exceptional,  rather  than  in  the  average, 
type.  Strange  people,  bizarre  customs,  alien  skies, 
men  and  women  vainly  struggling  against  some 
overmastering  obsession,  physical  disability  or 
mental  lesion,  a  long  nightmare  procession  of  the 
socially  and  morally  unfit, — such,  as  they  mentally 
file  before  us,  is  the  impression  left  by  the  leading 
characters  of  Mr.  Hichens's  novels. 

Now  the  fault  with  Mr.  Hichcns  is  not  too  great 
a  frankness  about  life.  It  is  not  that  he  looks 
upon  the  world  without  illusions,  recognizing  the 


348  ROBERT  HICHENS 

plague-spots  of  human  nature  and  ruthlessly 
stripping  them  bare.  A  bold,  uncompromising 
handling  of  hypocrisy  and  avarice,  frailty  and  vice 
is  one  of  the  canons  of  the  realistic  creed.  There 
is  more  disease  and  degradation  in  Zola's  Lourdes 
than  in  all  the  pages  ever  penned  by  the  author  of 
The  Black  Spaniel.  And  the  reason  why  The 
Black  Spaniel  is  an  unwholesome  book,  while 
Lourdes  is  not,  is  simply  this :  That  when  he  has 
occasion  to  expose  the  ugliness  of  life,  Mr.  Hich- 
ens,  unlike  Zola,  either  cannot  or  will  not  emulate 
the  purely  scientific  zeal  of  the  surgeon,  dissecting 
away  a  diseased  tissue.  Underneath  the  surface 
impersonality  of  the  realist,  one  discerns  a  spirit  of 
prying  and  unwholesome  curiosity,  gloating  over 
the  forbidden  and  the  unclean.  "  When  I  am 
what  is  called  wicked,  it  is  my  mood  to  be  evil," 
are  the  words  that  Mr.  Hichens  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Reggie  Hastings,  in  The  Green  Carna- 
tion. "  I  must  drink  absinthe,  and  hang  the  night 
hours  with  scarlet  embroideries ;  I  must  have  music 
and  the  sins  that  march  to  music."  And,  if  we  are 
content  not  to  stretch  the  comparison  unduly, 
these  phrases  are  not  a  bad  characterization  of  the 
salient  qualities  of  much  of  Mr.  Hichens's  fiction. 
He,  too,  is  fond  of  hanging  the  night  hours  with 
scarlet  embroideries,  of  showing  us  sins  that  keep 
pace  to  sensuous  rhythms.  Like  the  French  artist, 
Fromentin,  one  of  Mr.  Hichens's  forerunners  in 


ROBERT  HICHENS  349 

discovering  and  interpreting  Algeria,  he  has  suf- 
fered from  an  innate  tendency  to  see  what  is  pic- 
turesque, spectacular,  even  pretty,  rather  than 
what  is  truly  great ;  and,  as  with  Fromentin,  Al- 
geria taught  him  how  to  do  the  bigger  thing.  It 
was  not  until  he  replaced  his  "  scarlet  embroid- 
eries "  with  the  vast  monochrome  of  the  African 
sky,  the  tinkle  of  drawing-room  music  with  the 
sublimity  of  desert  silence  and  solitude,  that  he 
attained,  for  once  at  least,  an  epic  amplitude  of 
canvas  and  of  theme. 

As  a  bold  and  effective  colorist,  Mr.  Hichens 
deserves  cordial  commendation.  His  skill  in  vivid 
pictorial  description  is  beyond  dispute.  Whether 
it  be  a  glimpse  of  a  crowded  London  street,  the 
turquoise  blue  of  Italian  sea  and  sky,  or  the  burn- 
ing reach  of  sun-ravished  desert,  his  printed  words 
seem  to  open  up  a  vista  of  light  and  warmth,  a  mov- 
ing picture  wrought  of  dissolving  and  opalescent 
hues.  His  colors  lack  the  riotous  romanticism  of  a 
Theophile  Gautier,  the  wistful  melancholy  of  a 
Pierre  Loti,  the  frankly  pagan  sensuousness  of  a 
d'Annunzio, — yet  he  owes  something  of  its  varied 
richness  to  each  of  these.  It  is  obvious  that  he  loves 
color  for  its  own  sake, — much  as  his  heroine  in 
The  Slave  loves  the  gleam  of  jewels, — and  flings 
it  on  lavishly,  just  as  he  flings  on  other  forms  of 
ornamentation,  purely  decorative  in  purpose,  with 
the  result  that  his  backgrounds  are  often  crowded 


350  ROBERT  HICHENS 

with  superfluous  and  confusing  detail.  This  tend- 
ency has  grown  upon  him  year  by  year ;  it  is  only 
in  his  shorter  stories  that  he  has  learned  the  value 
of  restraint.  The  Garden  of  Allah,  Bella  Donna, 
The  Fruitful  Vine,  one  and  all  would  have  gained 
much  by  a  well-advised  and  ruthless  pruning. 

There  is  a  popular  impression  that  Mr.  Hichens 
is  a  writer  of  uncommon  versatility ;  and  when  we 
consider  that  his  themes  range  from  the  morphine 
habit  to  the  transmigration  of  souls,  and  his  stage 
settings  from  a  London  drawing-room  to  the  Sa- 
hara desert,  and  from  the  Nile  to  the  Italian  lakes, 
this  impression  seems  at  least  superficially  justi- 
fied. But  when  we  begin  carefully  to  sift  them 
over  and  mentally  slip  each  plot  into  its  respective 
pigeon-hole,  we  find  that,  underneath  all  his  shift- 
ing scenes  and  varied  topics,  Mr.  Hichens's  inter- 
est in  life  narrows  down  to  just  one  form  of 
obsession,  namely,  the  study  of  human  imperfec- 
tion, the  analysis  of  those  various  lesions  in  body, 
mind  or  soul  which,  like  a  flaw  in  the  heart  of  a 
gem,  brand  certain  men  and  women  as  unfit, — 
at  best,  to  be  classed  as  eccentrics,  and  at  worst 
as  monstrosities.  Viewed  from  this  point,  his 
themes  fall  naturally  under  three  heads:  first,  his 
social  satires,  or  studies  of  the  passing  fads, 
foibles,  petty  vices  and  hypocrisies  on  which  the 
world  of  fashion  smiles  indulgently ;  secondly,  cer- 
tain mental  delusions,  occult  phenomena,  psycho- 


ROBERT  HICHENS  351 

pathic  hallucinations,  such  as  form  the  underly- 
ing idea  of  stories  of  The  Black  Spaniel  type, — in 
which  each  reader  must  decide  for  himself  whether 
he  is  reading  an  allegory,  a  diagnosis  of  a  curious 
form  of  insanity,  or  a  report  to  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research;  and,  thirdly, — and  to  this 
class  belong  practically  all  of  Mr.  Hichens's  later 
serious  novels, — studies  in  moral  depravity, 
chronic  and  often  incurable  maladies  of  the  human 
soul. 

Because  of  this  threefold  classification  of  his 
stories,  it  is  impracticable  to  survey  Mr.  Hichens's 
writings  in  anything  approaching  chronological 
order.  His  sardonic  enjoyment  of  the  social  ex- 
travagance of  the  passing  hour  is  more  or  less  ap- 
parent in  every  book  that  he  writes,  and  lends 
sharp  characterization  to  many  an  unforgettable 
minor  character.  Yet  the  only  volume  since  The 
Green  Carnation  in  which  it  would  be  fair  to  say 
that  social  satire  is,  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  the 
main  issue,  is  The  Londoners,  in  which  the  pre- 
tensions of  smart  society,  the  pomps  and  vanities 
of  Mayfair,  are,  as  Mr.  Hichens's  own  sub-title 
implies,  reduced  to  an  absurdity.  Of  the  second 
class  of  plots,  or  those  dealing  with  occultism  and 
pseudo-psychic  phenomena  of  the  Jekyll-Hyde  or- 
der, we  have,  besides  The  Black  Spaniel,  a  number 
of  weird  and  fantastic  short  tales  and  two  novels, 
Flames:   A  London  Phantasy,  one  of  his  earliest 


352  ROBERT  HICHENS 

efforts,  and  The  Dweller  on  the  Threshold,  which 
is  one  of  his  most  recent.  This  group  of  stories 
represent  various  degrees  of  cleverness ;  but  they 
one  and  all  leave  the  impression  that  the  author 
has  not  put  the  best  of  himself  into  them.  They 
simply  are  the  embodiment  of  certain  fantastic 
ideas  which  in  hours  of  perversity  happened  to  riot 
through  his  brain,  and  which  later  he  could  not 
bring  himself  wholly  to  reject.  There  is  a  loath- 
some and  uncanny  horror  about  a  theme  like  that 
of  The  Black  Spaniel,  that  obviously  fastened 
leech-like  upon  the  abnormal  side  of  Mr.  Hichens's 
nature  and  refused  to  let  go  its  hold.  Yet,  even 
in  this  instance,  the  strongest  of  all  his  occult  hor- 
ror tales,  the  thing  is  not  quite  achieved.  By 
over-insistence  upon  obvious  details,  by  under- 
estimating the  intelligence  of  his  readers  and  ex- 
plaining his  meaning  in  words  of  one  syllable,  as 
though  to  an  audience  of  little  children,  he  defeats 
his  purpose,  and  destroys  the  last  vestige  of 
plausibility.  Mr.  Hichens  is  too  much  of  the 
earth,  earthy ;  he  is  far  too  interested  in  the  frail- 
ties and  perversions  of  the  flesh,  to  gain  credence 
when  writing  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  or  the 
vagaries  of  disembodied  spirits.  Consequently,  it 
is  with  his  third  class  of  stories,  serious  studies  of 
human  delinquency,  that  we  must  mainly  concern 
ourselves,  in  order  to  take  a  fair  measure  of  Mr. 
Hichens,  as  artist  and  as  student  of  human  nature. 


ROBERT  HICHENS  353 

Neither  is  it  worth  while  to  linger  over  his 
shorter  stories,  in  any  of  the  three  subdivisions. 
What  has  so  often  been  said  in  regard  to  the 
collection  of  Egyptian  and  Algerian  tales  that 
swell  the  volume  containing  The  Black  Spaniel  to 
its  required  three  hundred  and  odd  pages,  namely, 
that  they  were  fugitive  pages  from  his  note-book 
for  The  Garden  of  Allah,  applies  in  the  main  to 
most  of  his  shorter  efforts.  He  is  essentially  a 
writer  of  the  sustained  effort  type ;  and  it  is  con- 
sequently only  fair  to  judge  him  by  his  full-length 
volumes.  If  evidence  were  needed  to  support  the 
contention  that,  other  things  being  equal,  he  min- 
isters by  preference  to  a  mind  diseased,  then  such 
a  collection  of  tales  as  Tongues  of  Conscience 
would  furnish  fertile  illustrations.  There  is,  for 
instance,  the  story  of  the  famous  painter  whose 
peace  of  mind  is  destroyed  because  he  holds  him- 
self responsible  for  having  inspired  a  street  urchin 
with  a  passion  for  the  sea,  and  the  boy  subse- 
quently was  drowned ;  or  again,  in  "  The  Cry  of 
the  Child,"  we  have  a  young  doctor,  in  whose  ears 
there  rings  ceaselessly  the  dying  cry  of  his  own 
child,  whom  he  had  cruelly  neglected  in  its  last 
hours ;  and  still  again,  in  "  How  Love  Came  to 
Professor  Guildea,"  we  are  told  how  a  materialistic 
man  of  science  becomes  subject  to  the  obsession  of 
a  degraded  spirit, — a  hideous  bit  of  morbidity, 
which  might  pass  for  a  study  in  insanity,  if  the 


354  ROBERT  HICHENS 

author  had  not  precluded  that  explanation  by 
showing  us  the  Professor's  parrot  offering  its  crest 
to  the  caresses  of  unseen  fingers,  and  mimicking 
the  endearments  of  the  invisible  and  loathsome 
visitant. 

But,  as  it  happens,  the  longer  stories  are  even 
more  to  our  purpose  than  the  short  tales.  Al- 
ready in  1895,  his  second  published  volume,  An 
Imaginative  Man,  clearly  reveals  the  author's  nat- 
ural bent.  Briefly,  it  is  the  story  of  an  intel- 
lectual and  highly  cultivated  man  who  is  destitute 
of  natural  affections : 

He  (Denison)  had  never  loved  his  kind,  and  never 
even  followed  the  humane  fashion  of  pretending  to 
love  them.  ...  It  amused  him  to  observe  them  under 
circumstances  of  excitement,  terror  or  pain,  in  a  climax 
of  passion  or  despair.  .  .  .  He  liked  people  when 
they  lost  their  heads,  when  they  became  abnormal. 
Anything  bizarre  attracted  him  abnormally. 

This  curiously  unnatural  personage  marries  a 
charming  and  devoted  wife,  because  he  chooses  to 
suspect  something  enigmatic  about  her.  Later, 
when  he  is  forced  to  recognize  that  she  is  normal 
and  simple  and  true-hearted,  his  interest  turns  to 
a  dislike  akin  to  hatred.  Accordingly,  he  leaves 
her,  and,  after  amusing  himself  for  a  time  in 
Egypt,  watching  the  impotent  rebellion  of  a  boy 


ROBERT  HICHENS  355 

in  the  last  stages  of  consumption,  he  ends  his  use- 
less career  by  dashing  out  his  brains  against  the 
Sphinx,  with  which  he  has  perversely  become 
enamored.  Among  the  press-clippings  of  that 
period  there  is  one  opinion  upon  which  it  would 
be  presumptuous  to  try  to  improve: 

It  is  a  story  to  remain  a  splendid  monument  to  un- 
wholesome fancy,  a  thesaurus  of  morbid  suggestion, 
which  exalts  mere  vulgar  suicide  into  an  intellectual 
resource  of  the  weary-minded,  and  degrades  the  hu- 
manity of  virtue  into  mere  animal  instinct. 

As  a  companion  picture  to  this  unnatural  man, 
Mr.  Hichens  shortly  afterwards  gave  us  an  equally 
unnatural  woman,  in  the  person  of  Lady  Caryll 
Allabruth,  the  heroine  of  The  Slave.  Lady  Caryll 
is  obsessed  by  one  consuming  passion,  jewels, — 
by  which,  of  course,  Mr.  Hichens  wishes  to  sym- 
bolize all  the  futile  luxuries  for  which  women,  from 
time  immemorial,  have  sold  themselves.  She  is  for- 
tunate in  meeting,  while  still  quite  young,  an 
Anglicized  Oriental  of  great  wealth,  who  can  lav- 
ish upon  her  diamonds,  pearls  and  rubies,  who 
understands  her  through  and  through,  without  one 
remnant  of  flattering  illusion,  and  who  actually 
wins  her  by  the  dazzling  splendor  of  one  huge  and 
matchless  emerald.  It  is  her  own  husband  who,  in 
the  course  of  the  story,  sums  her  up  as  follows : 


356  ROBERT  HICHENS 

She  was  born  to  live  in  a  harem,  petted,  as  an 
animal  is  petted,  adorned  with  jewels  as  a  sultan's 
favorite  is  adorned.  Such  a  life  would  have  satisfied 
her  nature.  Her  soul  shines  like  a  jewel  and  is  as 
hard.  ...  A  certain  class  of  women  has  breathed 
through  so  long  a  chain  of  years  a  fetid  at- 
mosphere, of  intellectual  selfishness,  has  sold  itself, 
body,  mind  and  soul,  so  repeatedly  for  hard  things 
that  glitter,  for  gold,  for  diamonds,  for  the  petted 
slave-girl's  joys,  that  humanity  has  absolutely  dwin- 
dled in  the  race,  just  as  size  might  dwindle  in  a  race 
breeding  in  and  in  with  dwarfs.  In  Caryll,  that 
dwindling  light  of  humanity  has  gone  out.  My  wife 
is  not  human." 

Now,  it  is  extremely  convenient  for  a  woman 
who  happens  not  to  be  human  to  have  a  husband 
who,  although  aware  of  the  fact,  does  not  seem  to 
mind ;  so  it  was  rather  unfortunate  for  Caryll 
Allabruth  that  her  husband  died,  ruined  by  her 
monomania  for  jewels.  In  her  poverty,  however, 
Lady  Caryll  managed  to  retain  the  one  matchless 
emerald  with  which  he  had  won  her.  This  emer- 
ald is  subsequently  stolen ;  and,  since  it  is  the  one 
thing  left  in  life  for  which  she  cares,  and  all  other 
means  of  recovering  it  fail,  Lady  Caryll  consents 
to  become  the  burglar's  bride,  in  order  that  the 
emerald's  green  fires  may  once  more  burn  upon  her 
breast.  All  of  which,  in  spite  of  its  melodramatic 
extravagance,   rests   upon   a   foundation   of  per- 


ROBERT  HICHENS  357 

verse  and  sardonic  logic  that  is  eminently  char- 
acteristic. 

The  next  two  volumes,  in  point  of  time,  while 
unmistakably  expressing  the  same  outlook  upon 
life,  show  a  distinct  gain  in  the  direction  of  so- 
briety and  self-restraint.  Felix  and  The  Woman 
•with  the  Fan,  although  neither  of  them  a  book 
of  real  importance  in  itself,  at  least  revealed 
Mr.  Hichens  as  a  novelist  worth  watching  for  bet- 
ter reasons  than  merely  because  he  could  attract 
attention  with  a  flow  of  epigram,  as  insistent  as 
the  cracking  of  a  whip.  Moreover,  although  he 
had  not  learned  to  draw  sympathetic  characters, — 
and  it  is  seriously  to  be  questioned  whether  he  ever 
will  learn, — he  at  least  began  to  get  rather  nearer 
the  average  human  level  of  understanding  than  in 
the  case  of  Denison  or  Lady  Caryll.  The  heroine 
of  Felix  is  not  naturally  inhuman ;  she  is  simply  a 
victim  of  the  drug  habit,  an  unfortunately  com- 
mon and  pitiable  human  weakness,  although  re- 
pulsive and  rather  nauseating  when  forced  in  inti- 
mate detail  upon  our  notice.  If  Mr.  Hichens's 
purpose  was  to  do  for  the  opium  habit  what  Zola 
did  for  alcohol  in  V Assommoir,  it  is  a  pity  that  his 
misunderstanding  of  the  realistic  method  has  re- 
sulted in  defeating  his  object.  Zola  got  his  ef- 
fects by  tireless  and  uncompromising  accumula- 
tion of  facts,  flung  at  us  almost  defiantly,  with 
no  attempt  to  palliate  or  to  obscure.     What  his 


358  ROBERT  HICHENS 

characters  made  of  these  facts,  whether  they  un- 
derstood them,  believed  them,  acted  upon  them  or 
not,  was  all  of  secondary  importance ;  facts,  as 
nearly  as  he  could  get  them,  were  the  be-all  and 
the  end-all  of  his  novels,  their  excuse  and  apology 
for  existence.  Mr.  Hichens,  on  the  contrary,  can- 
not be  frank,  even  if  he  wants  to  be;  he  always 
proceeds  by  indirection.  It  is  so  much  easier  to 
suggest  than  to  tell  plainly  an  unsavory  fact,  and 
then  trust  the  reader's  mind  to  go  to  greater 
lengths  than  the  printed  page  would  dare  to  go! 
In  Felix  we  have  probably  the  best  and  most  ex- 
treme case  of  this  method  to  be  found  in  the  whole 
range  of  its  author's  writings.  Felix  himself  is  in 
no  wise  abnormal;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  just  the 
plain,  ordinary  variety  of  young  fool,  the  Kipling 
type  of  fool,  whose  rag  and  bone  happens,  to  his 
more  complete  undoing,  to  be  further  complicated 
with  a  hypodermic  needle.  Felix  pays  a  brief  visit 
to  Paris,  where  fate  wills  it  that  he  shall  meet  a 
certain  little  tailor  who  in  youth  had  the  honor  to 
make  Balzac  a  "  pair  of  trousers  without  feet," 
and  who  initiates  Felix  into  the  endless  delights 
of  the  Comedie  Humaine.  This  whole  episode  of 
the  little  tailor  stands  out  luminously  against  a 
background  of  human  slime.  It  is  the  sort  of  thing 
that  Mr.  W.  J.  Locke  can  do  so  supremely  well, 
a  page  that  might  have  fluttered  loose  from  The 
Beloved  Vagabond.     When  the  final  reckoning  of 


ROBERT  HICHENS  359 

Mr.  Hichens's  achievements  is  to  be  cast  up,  this 
little  masterpiece  of  Balzac's  tailor  ought  to  count 
heavily  on  the  credit  side. 

As  for  the  story  of  Felix  as  a  whole,  it  is  un- 
deniably strong, — as  strong  as  escaping  sewer  gas. 
Having  read  the  Come  die  Hummne,  Felix  flatters 
himself  that  human  nature  holds  no  secrets  from 
him ;  he  plunges,  hot-headed,  into  the  turbulence  of 
London's  fast  set,  men  drugged  with  ambition, 
women  drugged  with  vanity,  with  avarice,  with 
opium.  There  is  an  all-pervading  sense  of  some- 
thing unexplained  and  inexplicable.  Felix's  inex- 
perience hangs  like  a  heavy  veil  before  our  eyes, 
and  we  are  forced  to  grope  with  him,  to  piece 
fragments  of  evidence  together,  just  as  he  does, 
and,  like  him,  often  to  piece  them  wrong.  Espe- 
cially, out  of  the  other  loathsome  and  unclean 
horrors,  there  looms  up,  as  nauseously  offensive  as 
some  putrescent  fungoid  growth,  a  certain  corpu- 
lent, bloated,  blear-eyed  little  dog,  symbolic  of 
human  bestiality.  The  present  writer  can  recall 
no  episode  in  modern  fiction,  not  even  in  the  au- 
dacities of  Catulle  Mendes,  which,  after  a  lapse 
of  some  years,  still  brings  back  the  same  sickening 
qualm  of  physical  illness. 

The  Woman  with  the  Fan,  although  not  by  any 
means  lacking  in  audacities,  came  as  a  welcome 
contrast  to  its  predecessor.  In  addition  to  its  odd 
title,  it  had  a  somewhat  startling  cover  design,  the 


360  ROBERT  HICHENS 

nude  figure  of  a  woman  apparently  going  through 
some  sort  of  a  drill  with  an  open  fan.    This  figure, 
which  proves  to  be  a  marble  statuette  known  as 
Une   Danseuse   de   Tunisie,    plays    a    rather   im- 
portant part  in  the  development  of  the  story.     It 
is  the  fan  which  makes  the  statuette  wicked,  one 
of    the    characters    repeatedly    insists ;    and    the 
thought  which  is  symbolized  by  the  statue  is  that 
of  the  Eternal  Feminine  degraded  by  the  artificial 
and  the  tarnish  of  mundane  life.     In  applying  the 
symbolism  of  this  statuette  to  his  heroine,  Lady 
Holme,  Mr.  Hichens  seems  to  have  taken  a  per- 
verse pleasure  in  confusing  right  and  wrong,  ideal- 
ism and  sensuality.     Lady  Holme's   friends  con- 
stantly identify  her  with  the  statuette,  and  beg 
her  to  "  throw  away  her  fan,"  meaning  that  there 
is  a  taint  of  wickedness  about  her,  and  that  she  is 
capable  of  higher  things.     The  facts  in  the  case, 
however,  hardly  fit  in  with  this  theory.     Stripped 
of  its  symbolism,  the  book  is  a  study  of  the  two 
elements  which  go  to  make  up  human  love,  the 
physical  attraction  and  the  psychological.     Viola 
Holme  is  a  woman  in  whom  the  finer  elements  of 
character  lie  dormant.     She  is  married  to  a  man 
of  the  big,  athletic,  primitive  sort,  "  a  slave  to 
every    impulse   born    of   passing   physical    sensa- 
tions."    She  knows  that  of  poetry,  music,  and  all 
the  finer  things  of  life  he  has  not,  and  never  will 
have,  the  slightest  comprehension.    She  knows,  too, 


ROBERT  HICHENS  361 

that  he  loves  her  only  for  the  surface  beauty  of 
her  hair,  her  eyes,  her  symmetry  of  face  and  form, 
and  that  if  she  lost  that  beauty  on  the  morrow, 
his  love  would  go  with  it.  And  yet  she  loves  him, 
in  spite  of  his  crudeness  and  his  many  infidelities, 
because  he  satisfies  the  demands  of  that  side  of  her 
nature  which  is  the  strongest, — the  side  which 
"  holds  the  fan."  Other  men,  the  men  who  urge 
her  to  "  throw  the  fan  away,"  offer  her  a  different 
kind  of  love,  because  there  are  times  when  they 
see  in  her  eyes  and  hear  in  her  voice,  when  she 
sings  morbid  little  verses  from  d'Annunzio,  the 
promise  of  deeper  emotions  than  her  husband  ever 
dreamed  her  capable  of.  Now,  a  woman  of  Viola 
Holme's  temperament  would  never  voluntarily 
"  throw  aside  her  fan,"  and  Mr.  Hichens  is  a 
sufficiently  keen  judge  of  women  to  be  aware  of  it. 
Nothing  short  of  an  accident  in  which  the  statuette 
is  broken  will  accomplish  this  miracle.  So  fate 
is  invoked,  in  the  shape  of  an  overturned  automo- 
bile, and  Lady  Holme  struggles  back  to  conscious- 
ness, to  find  her  famous  beauty  gone  forever.  In 
its  place  is  a  mere  caricature  of  a  human  face,  a 
spectacle  so  repellent  that,  of  all  the  men  who 
formerly  professed  to  worship  the  "  inner  beauty 
of  her  soul,"  only  one  has  the  courage  to  renew 
his  vows,  and  he  a  poor,  broken-down  inebriate,  as 
sad  a  wreck  as  herself.  Such,  in  bare  outline,  is 
the  story  of  The  Lady  with  the  Fan,  and  each 


362  ROBERT  HICHENS 

reader  may  apply  the  symbolism  to  suit  himself. 
A  hasty,  snap-shot  interpretation  would  be  that 
Lady  Holme  would  have  become  a  better  woman, 
mentally  and  morally,  if  she  had  discarded  her 
coarse-minded  husband  and  replaced  him  with  a 
lover  of  more  artistic  temperament.  But  such  an 
interpretation  would  do  scant  justice  to  Mr.  Hich- 
ens's  subtlety.  The  physical  and  spiritual  ele- 
ments of  love,  he  seems  to  say,  are  too  curiously 
intermeshed  to  be  readily  separated;  there  is  no 
love  so  earthly  that  it  does  not  get  a  glimmer  of 
higher  things,  no  love  so  pure  and  idyllic  that  it 
does  not  crave  some  slight  concession  to  the  flesh. 
If  she  would  hold  love,  the  modern  woman  must 
be  content  to  remain  a  little  lower  than  the  angels, 
she  must  hold  to  her  fan. 

In  spite  of  the  implied  confession  of  weakness 
in  solving  a  rather  big  problem  with  the  unsatis- 
factory makeshift  of  an  accident,  The  Woman 
with  a  Fan  is  obviously,  even  now  as  we  look  at  it 
in  the  light  of  his  later  achievements,  so  much  big- 
ger and  stronger  and  more  vital  than  all  that  went 
before  it,  that  The  Garden  of  Allah,  when  it  fol- 
lowed shortly  afterwards,  ought  not  to  have  been  the 
surprise  that  it  actually  was.  Of  this  book,  the 
one  really  big  and  enduring  contribution  that  Mr. 
Hichens  has  made  to  modern  fiction,  there  is  really 
absurdly  little  to  say.  It  is  so  simple,  so  elemental, 
so  inevitable  in  all  its  parts.    It  may  be  epitomized 


ROBERT  HICHENS  363 

with  more  brevity  than  many  a  short  story.  There 
is  a  certain  Trappist  monk,  Androvsky,  who,  after 
twenty  years  of  silent  obedience  to  his  order% 
breaks  his  vows,  escapes  from  bondage,  and,  meet- 
ing Domini  Enfilden,  an  independent  English  gir] 
with  a  lawless  strain  of  gipsy  blood  in  her  veins, 
woes  her  with  a  gauche  and  timid  ardor,  and  car- 
ries her  off  for  a  mad,  fantastic  honeymoon  into 
the  heart  of  the  African  desert.  The  desert,  so 
says  a  Moorish  proverb,  is  the  Garden  of  Allah; 
and  here  the  renegade  monk,  fleeing  from  his  con- 
science, with  confession  ever  hovering  on  his  lips, 
and  doubly  punished  through  dread  of  the  anguish 
awaiting  his  innocent  bride  when  enlightenment 
comes  to  her,  finds  the  solitude  too  vast,  the  isola- 
tion too  terrifying,  the  imminence  of  divine  wrath 
too  overwhelming  to  be  borne.  It  drives  him  back 
to  the  haunts  of  men,  even  in  the  face  of  a  pre- 
monition that  amounts  to  certainty,  that  his  secret 
must  be  laid  bare  and  his  short-lived  and  forbidden 
joy  be  ended.  Now  the  theme  of  a  man  breaking 
the  holiest  vows  for  the  unlawful  love  of  a  woman 
is  one  of  the  commonplaces  in  the  history  of  fic- 
tion. It  is  the  majestic  simplicity  of  his  materials, 
the  isolation  of  his  man  and  his  woman,  the  sublim- 
ity of  his  remote,  unfathomable  background,  that 
combine  to  raise  this  exceptional  book  almost  to 
the  epic  dignity  of  the  First  Fall  of  Man.  As  has 
already  been  insisted,  in  connection  with  each  sue- 


364,  ROBERT  HICHENS 

ceeding  book,  Mr.  Hichens  does  not  possess  the 
faculty  of  frankness.  That  Boris  Androvsky  is  a 
sinner,  bearing  the  burden  of  an  unpardonable  and 
nameless  misdeed,  is  a  fact  that  we  grasp  almost 
at  the  outset;  but  Mr.  Hichens  would  have  been 
false  to  his  own  nature,  if  he  had  not,  before  re- 
vealing the  secret,  forced  us  to  suspect  his  hero 
of  every  known  crime  against  man,  nature  and 
God.  But  suddenly  his  theme  seems  to  have  taken 
possession  of  him,  to  have  raised  him  against  his 
will,  perhaps  without  his  knowledge,  out  of  the 
pettiness  and  subterfuge  that  have  dwarfed  so 
much  of  his  work,  into  the  full  light  of  truth  and 
sympathy  and  understanding.  In  a  certain  sense, 
the  book  seems  to  have  written  itself;  it  is  a  fan- 
tastic piece  of  word-painting,  done  with  a  trop- 
ical luxuriance  of  color,  a  carnival  of  Algerian 
pageantry  and  African  sunshine ;  and  everywhere 
and  all  the  time,  is  an  all-pervading  sense  of  the 
mystery,  the  languor,  the  thousand  blending  sights 
and  sounds  and  scents  of  the  Orient.  Long  after 
the  final  page  is  turned,  you  cannot  shut  out  from 
your  eyes  the  memory  of  the  desert,  "  with  its 
pale  sands  and  desolate  cities,  its  ethereal  mys- 
teries of  mirage,  its  tragic  splendors  of  color,  of 
tempest  and  of  heat " ;  you  cannot  forget  the 
throbbing  pulsations  of  burning  air,  the  vast  end- 
less monochrome  of  earth  and  sky,  the  primeval 
tragedy  of  an  erring  man  and  woman,  helpless 


ROBERT  HICHENS  365 

motes  in  the  glare  of  universal  sunshine,  impo- 
tently  fleeing  from  an  avenging  God.  It  is  this  one 
book  which  entitles  Mr.  Hichcns  to  a  serious  con- 
sideration among  the  novelists  of  to-day.  Without 
it,  he  could  have  safely  been  passed  over  in  silence. 
It  follows  that,  in  various  degrees,  all  the  books 
that  Mr.  Hichcns  has  given  us  since  The  Garden 
of  Allah  are  in  the  nature  of  an  anti-climax;  and 
for  that  reason  they  may  be  somewhat  briefly  and 
summarily  dismissed.  One  recalls  with  a  certain 
amount  of  cordial  appreciation  another  and 
briefer  story  of  Algeria  called  Barbary  Sheep, — 
a  book  that  owes  its  charm  chiefly  to  its  delicate 
and  almost  flawless  artistry,  and  its  lack  of  any 
pretension  to  be  more  than  it  actually  is.  Just  a 
bit  of  idle  playing  with  fire,  a  young  English 
couple  gaining  their  first  glimpse  of  African  life 
and  African  temperament ;  and  while  the  husband 
spends  his  days,  and  sometimes  the  nights,  tire- 
lessly hunting  Barbary  Sheep,  the  young  wife, 
restless,  unsatisfied,  craving  excitement,  is  drifting 
rashly  into  an  extremely  dangerous  intimacy  with 
a  cultured  and  suave  young  Arab,  an  officer  in  one 
of  the  native  regiments.  What  might  so  easily 
have  become  a  tragedy  is  brought  to  a  safe  and 
final  solution  by  the  removal  of  the  Arab  from 
further  participation,  through  his  death  at  the 
hands  of  a  fanatical  dervish.  And  to  the  end  we 
have  the  delicious  irony  of  the  utter  unconscious- 


366  ROBERT  HICHENS 

ness  of  the  phlegmatic  English  husband,  so  intent 
on  Barbary  Sheep  that  he  passes  his  wife,  where 
she  crouches  among  the  rocks,  in  the  desert  moon- 
light, equally  unsuspecting,  as  he  passes,  the 
menace  of  her  Arab  lover,  and  the  death-blow  that 
an  instant  later  removes  that  menace. 

Then  we  have  the  much  overpraised  Sicilian 
story,  The  Call  of  the  Blood,  and  its  stronger  and 
more  sanely  appraised  sequel,  A  Spirit  in  Prison. 
Aside  from  an  almost  pagan  frankness  in  their 
unashamed  recognition  of  physical  passion,  these 
are  conspicuously  clean  volumes,  with  little  if  any- 
thing of  the  author's  earlier  perversity.  The 
chief  weakness  in  The  Call  of  the  Blood  lies  in  the 
unconvincing  character  of  the  leading  episode,  the 
one  upon  which  the  whole  structure  of  the  story 
hinges :  namely,  the  fact  that  Hermione,  the  young 
English  wife  of  Maurice  Delarey,  feels  herself  com- 
pelled to  leave  him  before  their  honeymoon  in 
Sicily  is  half  over,  in  order  to  hasten  to  the  bed- 
side of  Emile  Artois,  the  Frenchman  who  has  long 
been  in  love  with  her,  and  who  is  said  to  be  dying. 
During  the  brief  weeks  of  her  absence,  her  hus- 
band, who  has  inherited  through  his  grandmother 
a  strain  of  Sicilian  blood,  yields  to  the  call  of  this 
remote  strain  and  falls  under  the  spell  of  a  young 
peasant  girl's  transient  beauty,  promptly  paying 
the  penalty  of  death  at  the  hands  of  the  peasant 
girl's  kinsmen.     Of  the  true  facts  of  this  tragedy 


ROBERT  HICHENS  367 

Hermione  is  never  told;  she  knows  only  that  her 
husband  was  drowned,  and  that  she  lost  some 
precious  weeks  of  happiness  by  her  absence  at 
the  bedside  of  the  Frenchman  whom  she  did  not 
love  and  who  has  lived,  while  the  Englishman  whom 
she  did  love  has  died.  So,  believing  him  to  be  the 
perfect  type  of  honor  and  fidelity,  she  consecrates 
herself  to  lifelong  widowhood. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  The  Call  of  the  Blood 
breaks  off,  with  a  young  and  still  beautiful  woman 
wasting  her  best  years  in  mourning  for  an  un- 
worthy man,  while  the  right  man,  who  knows  the 
truth  and  might  easily  win  her  if  he  chose  to  speak, 
feels  that  his  lips  are  sealed  by  his  unwillingness 
to  destroy  her  ideal.  A  Spirit  in  Prison  takes  up 
the  story  some  seventeen  years  later.  The  scene 
is  no  longer  Sicily,  but  a  tiny  island  in  the  Bay  of 
Naples,  to  which  the  widowed  bride  retired  at  the 
time  of  her  bereavement,  to  await  the  birth  of  her 
child,  and  in  which  she  and  Vere,  the  daughter, 
now  a  girl  of  sixteen,  still  have  their  home.  The 
Sicilian  peasant  girl,  for  whom  Hermione's  hus- 
band proved  false  to  her,  also  had  a  child,  who  is 
now  a  sturdy  young  fisher  lad,  with  eyes  that  are 
strangely  reminiscent  of  some  one  whom  Hermione 
has  known,  some  one  in  the  distant  past  whom  she 
either  cannot  or  will  not  name  even  to  herself.  Her 
attention  is  first  called  to  the  fisher  lad  by  the  in- 
terest that  he  awakens  in  her  daughter,  Vere ;  for 


368  ROBERT  HICHENS 

the  girl,  by  some  curious  instinct,  has  recognized 
the  ties  of  kinship  and  has  made  the  boy  her 
protege  and  comrade.  It  takes  very  little  time  for 
Artois,  who  still  loves  Hermione  with  patient  hope- 
lessness, and  for  Gaspare,  her  faithful  old  servant, 
to  learn  the  truth  about  the  boy's  parentage ;  and 
these  two  men  instinctively  conspire  to  keep  Her- 
mione in  ignorance.  But  by  doing  so  they  uncon- 
sciously prolong  her  suffering;  because  her  spirit 
is  struggling  in  the  prison  of  delusion,  and  can  win 
freedom,  and  with  it  love  and  happiness,  only 
through  full  knowledge  of  the  truth.  Altogether, 
these  two  volumes  make  up  a  strong,  clean,  tender 
human  story,  admirably  handled  to  bring  out  all 
the  values  that  the  plot  contains.  It  revealed  Mr. 
Hichens  as  an  interpreter  of  Italian  life  somewhere 
midway  between  Richard  Bagot  and  Marion  Craw- 
ford, less  pedantic  than  the  former,  yet  lacking  the 
geniality  of  the  creator  of  Saracinesca. 

Mr.  Hichens  might,  had  he  chosen,  have  gone  on 
indefinitely  from  this  point,  doing  the  fairly  in- 
nocuous, fairly  entertaining  sort  of  story,  and  let- 
ting us  little  by  little  forget  the  days  when  a  new 
volume  from  his  pen  meant  an  alternate  gasp  and 
shudder  at  the  turn  of  each  page.  But  it  is  not 
in  his  nature  to  be  content  with  doing  the  innoc- 
uous thing.  He  insists  upon  being  conspicuous; 
and  if  the  only  way  of  being  conspicuous  is  to 
shock  a  startled  world  into  attention,  he  stands 


ROBERT  HICHENS  369 

ready  to  do  so.  Just  two  more  novels  demand 
a  passing  word:  Bella  Donna  and  The  Fruitful 
Vine.  Of  these  two,  the  former  is  of  no  special 
importance,  either  in  theme  or  in  detail, — although 
in  its  heroine  he  has  created  one  more  unwhole- 
some and  abnormal  type  that  lingers  in  the 
memory.  At  the  opening  of  the  story,  Mrs.  Chep- 
stow is  summed  up  as  "  a  great  beauty  in  de- 
cline ": 

Her  day  of  glory  had  been  fairly  long,  but  now 
it  seemed  to  be  over.  She  was  past  forty.  She  said 
she  was  thirty-eight,  but  she  was  over  forty.  Good- 
ness, some  say,  keeps  women  fresh.  Mrs.  Chepstow 
had  tried  a  great  many  means  of  keeping  fresh,  but 
she  had  omitted  that. 

The  facts  about  Mrs.  Chepstow,  which  Mr. 
Hichens  regards  as  of  moment,  are  that  in  the 
zenith  of  her  youth  and  beauty  she  was  divorced 
by  her  husband ;  that,  having  made  a  failure  of 
one  life,  she  resolved  that  she  would  make  a  suc- 
cess of  another ;  that  for  a  long  time  she  kept  men 
at  her  feet,  ministering  to  her  desires, — and  then 
suddenly,  as  she  approached  forty,  "  the  roseate 
hue  faded  from  her  life,  and  a  grayness  began  to 
fall  over  it."  In  other  words,  to  catalogue  the 
book  roughly,  it  is  one  more  of  the  many  studies 
devoted  to  L'Automne  d'une  Femme.  And  so,  at 
the  opening  of  the  volume,  we  meet  Mrs.  Chepstow, 


370  ROBERT  HICHENS 

in  the  consulting-room  of  a  famous  specialist,  Dr. 
Meyer  Isaacson,  confiding  to  him  certain  facts 
about  herself,  physical,  mental  and  moral  facts, 
which  the  reader  is  not  allowed  to  overhear,  which 
the  woman  herself  never  alludes  to  again,  but 
which  Mr.  Hichens  has  no  intention  of  allowing  the 
reader  to  cease  for  one  moment  to  ponder  over, 
with  a  more  or  less  prurient  curiosity.  Inci- 
dentally,— and  to  this  extent  alone  is  her  con- 
fession justified  structurally, — it  is  the  memory 
of  what  she  confided  to  him  that  at  a  crucial  hour 
hurries  Dr.  Isaacson  on  a  desperate,  headlong 
Odyssey  to  the  Nile,  in  order  to  save  a  friend  and 
keep  Mrs.  Chepstow  from  the  sin  of  murder.  But 
all  of  this  is,  frankly,  rather  cheap  stuff,  and  quite 
unworthy  of  the  author  of  The  Garden  of  Allah. 
It  makes  a  normal-minded  reader  somewhat  exas- 
perated to  see  a  rather  rare  talent  deliberately 
misused. 

Only  one  other  volume,  The  Fruitful  Vine,  re- 
mains for  discussion.  The  setting  is  modern 
Rome,  the  leading  characters  two  married  couple, 
both  English,  Sir  Theodore  Cannynge  and  his 
wife,  Dolores,  Sir  Theodore's  closest  friend, 
Francis  Denzil  and  his  wife  Edna — and  just  one 
Italian,  Cesare  Carelli.  Cannynge,  having  lost  his 
first  love  in  a  painful  tragedy  years  before,  re- 
mained unmarried  almost  until  middle  age.  At 
the  opening  of  the  story  Dolores  has  for  ten  years 


ROBERT  HICHENS  371 

been  his  wife,  but  no  children  have  come  to  them. 
Whatever  regrets  he  may  have  felt  have  remained 
unspoken ;  until  within  a  year  his  whole  interest 
seemed  to  center  in  his  diplomatic  career,  first  in 
one  European  capital,  then  in  another.  But  when 
the  inheritance  of  an  independent  fortune  came 
almost  simultaneously  with  the  loss  of  his  great 
ambition,  the  Austrian  Embassy,  in  a  moment  of 
pique  he  resigned,  and  from  that  time  on  had 
more  time  for  thought  than  was  good  for  him. 
Finally  comes  the  day  when,  fresh  from  a  visit  to 
Denzil's  home,  full  of  the  merriment  of  children's 
voices,  he  catches  up  his  wife's  Chinese  poodle  by 
the  throat  and,  while  the  miserable  little  beast 
writhes  and  coughs  and  blinks,  tells  her  violently : 
"  Look  at  it !  This  is  all  we've  got,  you  and  I,  to 
make  a  home — after  ten  years ! "  Dolores  is  not 
surprised ;  she  has  felt  instinctively  that  sooner  or 
later  this  outbreak  was  bound  to  come.  None  the 
less  it  hurts  her — just  as  every  one  of  his  almost 
daily  visits  to  Denzil's  home,  blessed  with  a  fruit- 
ful vine  in  place  of  a  barren  one,  has  hurt  her. 
She  is  not  jealous  of  Edna,  Denzil's  wife,  al- 
though she  knows  that  the  idle  gossip  of  Rome  has 
settled  their  relations  for  them.  The  Roman 
world  would  be  incapable  of  understanding  that 
the  attraction  might  be  the  children  and  not  the 
woman.  Dolores's  troubles,  however,  are  only  just 
beginning.    Francis  Denzil,  husband  of  "  the  hap- 


372  ROBERT  HICHENS 

piest  woman  in  Rome,"  is  suddenly  stricken  down 
with  cancer  of  the  larynx,  is  operated  upon  and 
never  rallies.     His  last  request  is  that  Sir  Theo- 
dore will  be  a  second  father  to  his  little  son — and 
Sir  Theodore  promises.     From  this  time  onward, 
Dolores  sees  less  and  less  of  her  husband;  a  vi- 
carious fatherhood  has  taken  possession  of  him, 
absorbed  him,  made  him  a  new  man.     When  the 
summer  comes,  he  disappoints  her  regarding  her 
long-cherished  plan  to  visit  London,  and  insists 
upon  taking  a  villa  at  Frascati,  so  as  to  be  near 
the  Denzil  children.     Then  comes  a  day  when  Do- 
lores rebels,  packs  her  belongings  and  goes  by  her- 
self to  Lake  Como,  to  escape  the  torture  of  neg- 
lect.    Meanwhile  Roman  gossip  has  been  busy  in 
coupling  her  name  with  that  of  another  man,  that 
of  Cesare  Carelli.    Since  he  was  a  mere  boy,  Carelli 
has  been  faithful  to  just  one  woman,  the  Mancini. 
But   suddenly   and  quite   recently   it   has   become 
common  knowledge  that  he  has  definitely  broken 
with  her.     Why  ?  asks  Rome  insistently ;  Romans 
do  not  do  such  things;  a  man  may  be  untrue  to 
his  wife,  but  a  lover  remains  faithful.    There  must 
be  some  other  woman — and  Rome  is  quick  to  find 
her  in  Dolores.     As   the   Countess   Boccara  tells 
Dolores  to  her  face,  with  a  malicious  little  stress 
on  the  pronoun :     "  The  rupture  happened  in  the 
summer,  very  soon   after  you  left  Rome,   cara. 
Now  it  is  while  Dolores  is  in  hiding  at  Como,  and 


ROBERT  HICHENS  373 

just  at  the  crucial  moment  when  the  insistent 
thought  has  first  taken  possession  of  her,  "  If  I 
could  only  give  Theodore  a  child !  "  that  Carelli 
tracks  her  down — and  this  is  the  beginning  of  the 
tragedy  that  the  reader  at  once  foresees  is  in- 
evitable. What  actually  follows  may  be  put  into 
a  dozen  words.  Dolores  does  give  a  child  to  Sir 
Theodore — a  child  of  alien  parentage — but  she 
never  reaps  the  harvest  that  she  has  hoped  for,  the 
harvest  of  reawakened  love ;  because  the  child  costs 
the  mother  her  life,  or  rather,  not  the  child,  but 
her  own  loosened  hold  upon  life  itself,  due  to  a 
loathing  of  her  own  deed.  As  for  Carelli,  he  is 
truly  Italian  in  his  inability  to  conceive  of  Do- 
lores's real  motive.  For  love,  yes,  that  he  could 
understand ;  but  for  motherhood,  never !  And 
when  the  woman  is  dead,  and  the  stricken  husband 
is  just  awakening  to  his  loss,  the  Italian  thinks 
to  square  accounts  by  claiming  his  child.  But 
his  revenge  misses  fire.  His  revelation  simply  re- 
sults in  quickening  Sir  Theodore's  own  self- 
knowledge,  and  he  says  at  last  in  all  humility: 
"  She  was  better  than  I,  better  than  I !  " 

Such  is  the  story  of  The  Fruitful  Vine,  analyzed 
as  generously  and  as  sympathetically  as  possible. 
It  is  written  with  extraordinary  power,  and  it  is 
thrown  into  strong  relief  against  a  background  of 
rare  richness,  the  vari-colored  background  of  the 
Roman    world.      Of   the    inherent    bigness    of   his 


374  ROBERT  HICHENS 

theme,  the  pathos  of  barrenness,  the  tragedy  of  a 
woman  who  sees  her  husband's  love  alienated  be- 
cause she  fails  to  give  him  sons  and  daughters, 
there  can  be  no  question: — just  as  there  can  be 
no  question  that  Mr.  Hichens  has,  perhaps  unwit- 
tingly, done  his  utmost  to  debase  it.  He  has 
given  his  theme  certain  perverse  twists  that  put  it 
on  a  level  even  lower  than  that  of  Elinor  Glyn's 
much-discussed  Three  Weeks.  It  was  cheap  work- 
manship, and  not  an  unworthy  plot,  that  made 
Three  Weeks  the  ephemeral,  negligible  book  that  it 
was.  But  in  The  Fruitful  Vine  we  are  asked  to  be- 
lieve that  a  delicately  nurtured,  refined  and  culti- 
vated Englishwoman,  who  worships  her  husband, 
is  willing  to  do  him  the  ultimate,  crowning  wrong 
that  any  wife  can  do,  and  foist  upon  him,  as  his 
son  and  heir,  an  interloper  that  has  not  even  the 
redeeming  grace  of  being  a  child  of  love,  but  one 
more  basely  begotten,  more  purely  meretricious 
than  half  the  nameless  waifs  that  crowd  the 
asylums !  And  in  asking  this,  he  simply  insults 
our  intelligence.  All  his  finished  craftsmanship 
cannot  make  the  volume  otherwise  than  futile. 

To  sum  him  up  in  a  few  words,  we  have  in  Mr. 
Hichens  a  story  teller  of  much  brilliance  who  has 
deliberately  chosen  to  prostitute  his  gifts  to  the 
gratification  of  unhealthy  tastes.  He  has  pre- 
ferred the  sensational  notoriety  of  the  passing 
hour  to  the  less  flamboyant  successes  of  enduring 


ROBERT  HICHENS  375 

worth.  He  has  given  us  a  few  books  that  are 
fairly  innocuous  and  just  one  book  that  deserves 
to  live.  And  the  danger  of  according  the  full 
measure  of  praise  to  The  Garden  of  Allah  lies  in 
this :  that  by  granting  its  greatness,  we  may  seem 
by  implication  to  put  the  stamp  of  approval  on 
the  author's  other  works,  so  many  of  which,  unfor- 
tunately, are  mentally  and  morally  unclean. 


"FRANK  DANBY" 

The  critical  comment,  both  in  this  country  and 
in  England,  that  has  greeted  the  novels  which  from 
time  to  time  have  appeared  over  the  signature  of 
"  Frank  Danby,"  has  so  often  been  tinged  by  a 
prejudiced  and  illiberal  spirit  that  it  seems  worth 
while  before  proceeding  to  a  detailed  examination 
of  her  place  in  fiction,  to  comment  briefly  on  a 
form  of  inconsistency  that  is  only  too  prevalent 
among  present-day  reviewers.  A  critic,  of  course, 
has  an  inalienable  right  to  choose  his  own  stand- 
ard, provided  he  makes  that  standard  clear  and 
adheres  to  it ;  he  is  free  to  pose  as  a  self-appointed 
censor  of  public  morals,  or  he  may  champion  the 
cause  of  art  for  art's  sake,  denying  the  right  of 
morality  to  intervene.  But  he  must  not  follow  one 
standard  to-day  and  a  different  one  to-morrow,  or 
he  will  be  as  futile  as  a  double-pointed  compass. 
Thanks  to  the  modern  spread  of  cosmopolitanism 
in  letters,  there  has  been  a  notable  diminution  of 
what  the  author  of  Pigs  in  Clover  calls  the  "  pru- 
rient purity  of  the  provincial  mind  "  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  attitude  towards  the  realism  of  the  Con- 
tinental   school.      Zola    and    Maupassant,    Suder- 

376 


FRANK    DAN BY 


"FRANK  DANBY"  377 

mann  and  Strindberg  and  d'Annunzio  arc  ac- 
cepted very  nearly  at  the  valuation  of  their  own 
countrymen.  Yet  the  same  critic  who  has  trained 
himself  to  speak  glibly  of  the  admirable  technique 
of  La  Maison  Tellier,  and  the  powerful  symbolism 
of  the  Trionfo  della  Morte,  suddenly  lapses  back 
into  the  old-time  prudery  the  instant  he  is  con- 
fronted with  an  attempt  in  English,  no  matter  how 
well  done,  to  imitate  the  Continental  school.  And 
this  is  palpably  unjust.  No  one  is  under  any 
obligation  to  feign  a  liking  for  Flaubert  and  the 
Goncourts,  Daudet,  Huysmans  and  the  various 
other  influences  under  which  such  a  writer  as,  let 
us  say,  George  Moore,  acquired  his  technique  and 
developed  his  art.  But  no  one  has  the  right  to 
profess  admiration  for  Sapho  and  Nana  and  La 
Fille  Elisa,  and  condemn  The  Mummer's  Wife  as 
sordid  and  unclean. 

Mrs.  Julia  Frankau,  who  has  chosen  to  dif- 
ferentiate between  her  various  art  monographs  and 
her  contributions  to  fiction  by  publishing  the  for- 
mer over  her  own  name  and  signing  the  latter  with 
the  pseudonym  of  "  Frank  Danby,"  is  emphatically 
one  of  the  writers  who  in  fairness  should  be  judged 
by  Continental  standards.  In  spirit  and  in  method, 
the  best  and  biggest  of  her  novels  show  a  breadth 
of  canvas,  a  sweeping,  Zolaesque  audacity  of  theme 
and  phrase,  an  uncompromising  honesty  that 
shock   and   offend  the   conventional  Anglo-Saxon 


378  "FRANK  DANBY  » 

mind.  In  her  ability  to  handle  the  unsavory  facts 
with  an  utter  absence  of  self-consciousness,  a 
purely  detached  and  scientific  interest  in  her  facts, 
akin  to  that  of  a  surgeon  at  a  clinic,  she  is  to  be 
classed,  not  with  the  women  novelists  of  England 
or  America,  but  with  that  small  and  widely  scat- 
tered group  of  robust  and  valiant  spirits,  such  as 
Matilde  Serao  in  Italy,  Emilia  Pardo  Bazan  in 
Spain,  the  late  Amalie  Skram  in  the  Far  North, 
Helene  Bohlau  and  Margarete  Bohme  in  Germany, 
— the  last  named  just  beginning  to  gain  the  recog- 
nition that  she  so  richly  deserves.  If  there  is  any 
other  woman  in  England  whose  work  gives  prom- 
ise of  similar  virile  strength  and  fearlessness,  it  is 
the  writer  who  elects  to  be  known  to  the  public 
as  "  Richard  Dehan,"  whose  South  African  novel, 
The  Dop  Doctor,  in  spite  of  many  crudities,  was 
full  of  brilliant  promise,  and  whose  new  volume, 
Between  Two  Thieves,  is  one  of  the  biggest  his- 
torical novels  of  the  present  decade. 

But  while  granting  freely  to  "  Frank  Danby  ': 
her  unflinching  courage,  her  clear-eyed  under- 
standing of  life,  her  relentless  probing  after  the 
truth,  even  though  in  doing  so  she  opens  up  the 
fester-spots  of  society,  one  must  also  admit  that 
she  is  a  sadly  uneven  craftsman,  often  handi- 
capped by  her  lack  of  self-criticism,  and  driven  to 
unwise  lengths  by  the  violence  of  her  prejudices 
and  a  goading  impatience  at  narrow-minded  mis- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  379 

comprehension.  Her  scathing  contempt  of  certain 
classes  and  racial  types,  her  unsoftened  utterances 
on  politics,  religion,  heredity  and  the  problems  of 
sex  abundantly  account  for  the  unjust  neglect  and 
condemnation  that  were  so  largely  the  portion  of 
her  earlier  novels.  Yet  the  volumes  which  show 
most  markedly  this  spirit  of  revolt,  this  deter- 
mination to  speak  the  truth,  regardless  of  whom  it 
offends,  are  precisely  the  volumes  that  make  her 
an  interesting  figure  in  contemporary  fiction. 
They  include,  notably,  Dr.  Phillips,  which  created 
no  small  sensation  in  London,  upward  of  twenty 
years  ago,  Pigs  in  Clover,  which  in  spite  of  a  faulty 
structure  remains  to  this  day  its  author's  biggest 
novel,  and  The  Sphinx's  Lawyer,  her  most  flagrant 
defiance  of  public  opinion,  which  nevertheless  pro- 
pounds certain  weighty  questions  that  compel 
thoughtful  attention.  Since  the  publication  of 
The  Sphinx's  Lawyer  "  Frank  Danby's  "  manner 
has  undergone  a  change.  Her  later  volumes, 
The  Heart  of  a  Child,  An  Incompleat  Etonian, — 
known  in  America  under  the  title  of  Sebastian, 
even  Joseph  in  Jeopardy,  which  here  and  there  has 
a  flash  of  the  old-time  daring,  show  a  spirit  of  con- 
cession. Of  these  later  books,  the  author  might 
have  written  what  she  actually  did  write  of  her 
biography  of  Lady  Hamilton,  that "  much  has  been 
omitted  that  might  offend  the  susceptibilities  of 
those    to   whom    the   truth   is    less   grateful   than 


380  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

delicacy."  They  are  carefully  written  books, 
showing  her  customary  wise  understanding  of  hu- 
man nature,  together  with  a  distinct  gain  in  the 
mechanics  of  construction ;  and  they  are  books 
which  are  not  likely  to  call  forth  hostile  comments. 
They  may  be  safely  put  into  the  hands  of  the  aver- 
age reader  without  fear  of  ruffling  too  harshly  any 
pet  prejudice, — unless,  perhaps,  here  and  there 
some  champion  of  the  suffragette  movement  may 
resent  the  wholesome  indorsement  of  the  old- 
fashioned  domestic  type  of  woman,  in  Joseph  in 
Jeopardy.  But  they  lack  that  ample  largeness  of 
view,  that  forceful  singleness  of  purpose,  that  ex- 
uberant vitality,  which,  in  the  case  of  her  earlier 
books,  compelled  recognition,  even  in  the  face  of  a 
storm  of  protests,  as  novels  of  serious  importance 
and  big  promise. 

What  has  happened  to  "  Frank  Danby  "  is  not 
unlike  what  happens  to  a  large  proportion  of  suc- 
cessful novelists  ;  yet,  because  of  her  peculiar  gifts, 
it  is  a  little  more  noticeable  and  a  good  deal  more 
regrettable.  It  is  only  young  authors,  in  the  first 
flush  of  enthusiasm,  who  dare  fully  to  defy  conven- 
tion. With  each  successive  year  they  find  them- 
selves, almost  unconsciously  perhaps,  a  little  more 
narrowed  down,  a  little  more  hampered  both  in 
form  and  in  subject,  by  what  is  expected  of  them, 
by  what  is  demanded  by  the  generation  in  which 
they  live.     In  France,  the  conventional  limitations 


"FRANK  DANBY"  381 

show  themselves  a  little  more  obviously  than  in  our 
country,  thanks  to  that  ultra-conservative  institu- 
tion, the  French  Academy.  It  is  an  interesting 
and  enlightening  study  to  compare  the  youthful 
and  exuberant  independence  to  be  found  in  the 
earlier  work  of  many  a  staid  academician,  with 
the  admirably  correct  but  colorless  productions 
which  only  too  often  follow  their  election.  Of 
course,  if  an  author  in  the  beginning  is  not  vio- 
lently independent  or  startlingly  iconoclastic ;  if 
his  departures  either  from  the  prescribed  technique 
of  fiction  or  the  conventional  range  of  subjects  has 
not  behind  it  that  spark  of  genius  which  provokes 
antagonism,  then  he  may  very  easily  and  with  no 
great  loss  to  the  world  settle  down  to  the  usual 
beaten  path  of  the  English  novelist,  happy  in  the 
conviction  that  he  is  showing  a  steady  upward 
growth  that  keeps  pace  with  his  gain  in  popular- 
ity. But  now  and  then  one  comes  across  a  pe- 
culiarly flagrant  and  exasperating  case  of  a  big, 
erratic,  undisciplined  genius  that,  with  proper  en- 
couragement, might  in  time  achieve  great  things ; 
but,  because  of  the  world's  slowness  to  understand 
and  to  accept  that  which  is  new,  especially  when 
it  runs  counter  to  deep-rooted  prejudice,  the 
genius  finds  itself  broken  to  harness,  like  a  clipped- 
winged  Pegasus,  and  compelled  to  pace  along  with 
due  decorum. 

It  would  be  unfair  to  Mrs.  Frankau  to  suggest 


382  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

her  as  an  example  of  such  broken-spirited  genius. 
In  the  face  of  much  discouragement,  she  has  ended 
by  conquering  her  public,  without  any  really 
humiliating  sacrifice  of  her  ideals.  What  has  un- 
doubtedly reacted  in  her  favor  is  a  solid  reputation 
that  she  has  simultaneously  been  building  up  in 
another  department  of  letters,  with  a  series  of 
biographies  and  art  monographs  whose  solid  worth 
has  from  the  first  been  unquestioned.  Thus,  her 
Eighteenth  Century  Colored  Prints  has  been  for 
ten  years  the  recognized  authority  on  the  subject, 
and  has  given  this  special  branch  of  the  art  a  new 
valuation ;  her  Life  of  James  and  William  Ward 
complements  and  rounds  out  the  earlier  volume, 
and  stands  as  a  classic  of  its  kind ;  while  the  Lon- 
don Academy,  which  only  a  few  years  ago  was 
quite  ruthless  in  its  denunciations  of  her  novels, 
does  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  her  biography  of 
Lady  Hamilton  "  the  ripest  and  best  work  of  the 
greatest  woman  writer  now  living  in  England." 
And  yet  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  cumula- 
tion of  unintelligent  and  misdirected  criticism  has 
had  upon  "  Frank  Danby  "  an  effect  identical  in 
kind  with  that  above  suggested,  and  differing  solely 
in  the  degree  of  its  consequences.  Current  book 
reviews  are  proclaiming  Joseph  in  Jeopardy  Mrs. 
Frankau's  finest  effort,  just  as  they  previously 
passed  a  like  verdict  upon  The  Heart  of  a  Child 
and  An  Incompleat  Etonian.     But  to  the  reader 


"FRANK  DAN  BY"  383 

who  happens  to  have  read  Pigs  in  Clover  when  it 
first  appeared  and  to  have  been  swept  off'  his  feet 
by  the  tremendous  truth  and  unashamed  human 
passion  of  it,  these  later  more  controlled,  more 
carefully  wrought  pictures  of  English  life  suggest 
that  unmistakable  bluish  pallor  which  comes  from 
too  much  skimming  and  too  much  water. 

Now,  just  why  these  later  volumes  of  "  Frank 
Danby's  "  leave  an  indefinable  impression  of  a  low- 
ered vitality,  a  lack  of  riotous,  red  blood,  an  ab- 
sence of  the  old-time  storm  and  stress  of  primitive 
emotions,  is  at  first  a  little  puzzling  to  explain. 
Her  characters  are  still  etched  in  with  the  same 
unfaltering,  sharply  burined  lines  as  of  old,  the 
individual  situations  are  as  poignantly  and  arrest- 
ingly  real,  the  central  themes  as  profoundly  and 
broadly  human.  The  ability  of  an  unprotected 
girl  to  guard  herself  from  the  world,  the  pros- 
pects of  a  boy  handicapped  by  unfortunate  hered- 
ity, the  fidelity  of  a  husband  to  his  marriage  vows, 
are  one  and  all  subjects  of  as  wide  and  vital  inter- 
est as  the  injustice  of  our  penal  system,  the  elusive, 
insistent  attraction  of  sex,  or  the  social  eligibility 
of  the  modern  Jew.  The  essential  difference,  when 
we  come  to  examine  these  volumes  a  little  closer, 
lies,  not  in  "  Frank  Danby's  "  art,  but  in  her 
craftsmanship,  in  the  mechanical  framework  on 
which  she  builds.  Reviewers  insist  that  she  has 
gained  in  technical  skill ;  and,  in  point  of  symmetry 


384  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

of  structure,  an  elimination  of  all  superfluous  mat- 
ter, an  ending  that  carries  with  it  a  certain  super- 
ficial logic  and  satisfies  the  popular  demand  for  a 
happy  solution,  she  undoubtedly  has  learned  her 
lesson.    But  in  her  earlier  books  she  was  content  to 
carry  her  theme  straight  to  its  foreordained  conse- 
quences, whether  it  left  a  pleasant  taste  on  the 
mental  palate  or  not,  and  even  though  all  estab- 
lished  rules    of   structure   were   shattered   in    the 
process.  Without  intending  to  minimize  the  impor- 
tance of  technique,  we  may  nevertheless  point  out 
that  the  more  rigid  we  make  its  rules,  the  more 
they  partake  of  the  nature  of  ready-made  gar- 
ments, which  run  in  certain  stock  sizes  and  fit  best 
when  tried  upon  the  average  commonplace  indi- 
vidual, and  which  fit  grotesquely  or  not  at  all  upon 
the  shoulders  of  a  giant.     Pigs  in  Clover,  dispro- 
portioned  and  unsymmetrical  though  it  is,  belongs 
nevertheless  to  the  order  of  giants.     It  might  ad- 
vantageously have  been  lopped  off  a  few  chapters 
sooner ;  it  simply  did  not  know  where  to  stop  grow- 
ing.   But  no  enlightened  reader  should  be  seriously 
annoyed  by  its  structural  eccentricities ;  the  thing 
is  too  big  for  that.    Beginning,  however,  with  The 
Heart  of  a  Child,  there  is   a   radical  difference. 
We  are  keenly  conscious,  underneath  the  surface 
flesh-and-blood  of  these  later  stories,  of  a  manu- 
factured skeleton,  which  is  palpably  not  bone  and 
sinew,  and  we  resent  the  artificiality  of  it.     Meta- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  385 

phorically  speaking,  it  is  the  difference  between 
creation  and  taxidermy.  It  is  usually  the  closing 
chapter  where  the  internal  string  and  wire  pro- 
trude. There  is  a  lack  of  finality  about  them, 
an  impression  that  they  have  dodged  the  real  point 
at  issue,  have  failed  to  solve  the  problem  pro- 
pounded. "  Frank  Danby  "  is  not  the  first  novel- 
ist who  has  found  certain  knots  so  intricate  that, 
instead  of  untying  them,  it  seemed  simpler  to  cut 
them  with  a  knife. 

There  is  yet  another  reason  which  strikes  closer 
to  the  root  of  the  difference  between  "  Frank 
Danby's  "  earlier  and  later  method  than  any  mere 
question  of  technique.  It  is  her  deliberate  change 
of  attitude  towards  life.  From  the  first  her  real 
strength  lay  in  her  ability  to  look  unflinchingly 
on  the  cruelty  and  injustice  of  the  world  at  large, 
to  picture  without  compromise  the  net  results  of 
human  frailty  and  selfishness  and  sin.  In  all  her 
books,  she  chose  instinctively  characters  and  sit- 
uations that  made  for  tragedy, — and  she  does  so 
still.  Life's  handicaps,  the  snares  that  heredity 
and  environment  so  abundantly  provide,  enter  into 
the  very  warp  of  her  plots,  the  later  and  earlier 
alike.  Yet,  while  the  nature  of  her  material  has 
not  changed,  she  has  begun  to  cultivate  a  vein  of 
optimism,  to  refuse  to  credit  the  evidence  of  her 
own  experience,  to  insist  upon  hoping  against  logic 
for  a  happy  outcome.     Formerly,  she  had  the  air 


386  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

of  saying,  authoritatively,  "  Here  is  a  situation 
which,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  is 
bound  to  end  in  disaster."  In  her  later  books, 
she  says,  on  the  contrary,  "  Here  is  the  hundredth 
case,  the  great  exception," — and,  in  spite  of  all 
her  native  talent  and  her  acquired  art,  she  does 
not  quite  succeed  in  carrying  conviction. 

There  are  some  authors  whose  successive  vol- 
umes seem  to  fit  together  with  the  same  nicety 
as  the  carefully  chiseled  stones  in  the  span 
of  an  arch,  so  that  if  a  single  volume  were  omitted 
from  mention,  the  whole  structure  of  a  critical 
article  would  be  in  danger  of  toppling  down. 
"  Frank  Danby  "  is  not  one  of  these.  No  chron- 
ological study  of  her  works  would  help  to  explain 
why  some  of  them  loom  up  so  large  and  others  are 
so  easily  negligible.  Accordingly,  it  seems  more 
profitable  to  pass  over  her  ineffectual  volumes 
with  little  or  no  mention, — her  almost  forgotten 
Copper  Crash  and  A  Babe  in  Bohemia,  the  faulty 
workmanship  of  Baccarat,  the  futile  unpleasant- 
ness of  Let  the  Roof  Fall  In, — and  dwell  mainly 
upon  the  high  lights,  the  few  vitally  significant 
volumes. 

And,  unquestionably,  if  "  Frank  Danby's " 
claim  to  a  prominent  place  among  contemporary 
story  tellers  is  to  be  vindicated,  the  one  book  to 
single  out  for  detailed  analysis  is  Pigs  in  Clover. 


"  FRANK  DANBY  "  387 

It  is  not  the  first  story  in  which  she  vivisected  the 
baffling  and  mysterious  attraction  of  sex  and  at  the 
same  time  analyzed  the  English  Jew  with  a  merci- 
less frankness  verging  upon  malice.  Both  these 
elements  also  underlie  the  story  of  Dr.  Phillips,  in 
which  a  man  of  high  attainment,  erudite,  wealthy 
and  widely  honored,  falls  a  victim  to  the  compel- 
ling lure  of  sex,  and  for  the  sake  of  a  shallow, 
selfish,  mercenary  little  woman,  who  does  not  even 
love  him,  sacrifices  himself  utterly,  stoops  to  the 
basest  of  dishonor  and  uses  the  cloak  of  his  pro- 
fession to  commit  a  cowardly  murder.  There  are 
few  scenes  in  modern  fiction  more  remorselessly 
cruel  than  that  in  which  Dr.  Phillips,  obsess-ed  with 
his  infatuation  for  another  woman,  stands  by  the 
bedside  of  his  faithful,  middle-aged,  unlovely  wife, 
who  has  just  undergone  a  serious  operation,  and 
is  now  sleeping  the  unnatural  sleep  induced  by  the 
lingering  effects  of  the  anesthetic  supplemented  by 
a  hypodermic  injection  of  morphine.  The  chance 
is  so  opportune,  the  danger  of  detection  so  slight ; 
the  dose  given  by  the  other  doctor  might  have 
been  too  strong  for  her  weakened  vitality ;  a  sec- 
ond dose,  inserted  in  the  same  puncture,  leaves  no 
trace,  and  the  poor,  faithful  old  wife  breathes 
slowly  and  painlessly  into  oblivion. 

Dr.  Phillips,  however,  in  spite  of  its  unsparing 
satire  of  certain  Jewish  types,  is  really  little  more 


388  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

than  the  story  of  a  specific  and  peculiarly  cruel 
crime.  Pigs  in  Clover  is  a  book  of  altogether  dif- 
ferent magnitude.  It  is  obvious  that  one  of  the 
main  arguments  of  the  story,  the  one  in  which  she 
herself  seems  to  be  most  keenly  interested,  is  a 
broad  racial  problem,  the  eligibility  of  the  modern 
Jew  to  be  received  on  a  footing  of  social  equality. 
At  least,  she  proclaims  this  purpose  in  her  title, 
suggesting,  as  it  does,  the  pushing  droves  of  un- 
savory and  unwelcome  intruders,  eager  for  a  feast 
upon  the  forbidden  social  clover.  Incidentally, 
she  theorizes  a  good  deal  about  the  modern  Jew. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  her  story  contains  just  two 
types,  the  full-blooded  Hebrew,  self-made  mil- 
lionaire, proud  of  his  success,  conscious  of  his 
social  shortcomings  and  good-naturedly  amused 
at  the  pointed  snubs  that  he  receives ;  and  the 
mongrel  type,  the  "  veneered  cad  in  a  golden 
frame,"  who  almost  passes  for  a  gentleman,  who 
betrays  his  origin  to  the  casual  stranger  only  by 
the  slight  burr  of  his  "  r,"  and  who  keeps  the 
full  extent  of  his  social  and  moral  obliquity  con- 
cealed from  those  nearest  and  dearest  to  him,  al- 
most until  the  end.  The  way  in  which  we  are  first 
introduced  to  Karl  Althaus,  South-African  mil- 
lionaire, and  his  adopted  brother,  Louis,  in  the 
full  noontide  of  their  prosperity,  and  then  are  per- 
mitted to  catch  just  one  fleeting  glimpse  of  their 
origin,  is  a  stroke  of  genius.    It  is  as  though  a  cur- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  389 

tain  were  drawn  aside  for  an  instant  from  some 
grim,  ghastly,  lurid  picture,  and  then  were  allowed 
to  fall  back  into  place,  almost  before  the  spectator 
realizes  the  significance  of  what  he  has  seen.  One 
remembers  only  the  squalid  chamber  in  the 
wretched  kosher  provision  shop  in  Houndsditch ; 
the  fat,  repulsive  Jewess  with  a  greasy  black  fringe 
above  her  forehead,  lying  paralyzed  and  helpless 
on  her  bed,  dead  already  save  for  the  haunting 
pathos  of  her  questioning  eyes ;  the  miserable  Pol- 
ish Jew,  her  husband,  not  satisfied  with  having 
drained  her  like  a  human  leech,  of  her  last  penny 
and  her  last  ounce  of  strength,  but  heaping  upon 
her  the  ultimate  insult  of  bringing  in  another 
woman,  a  girl  from  the  London  streets,  to  share 
their  poverty  and  degradation.  And  finally,  that 
crowning,  indescribable  scene  with  its  haunting  at- 
mosphere of  death:  a  dying  Jewess,  a  dying  Eng- 
lish girl,  a  new-born  child,  and  Karl  Althaus,  a 
lad  of  twelve,  swearing  to  be  a  brother  and  a  pro- 
tector to  that  child  throughout  its  life.  And  in 
this  fugitive  glimpse  of  their  origin  we  get  the 
secret  of  the  life-long  difference  between  these  two. 
Karl,  coarse,  vulgar,  unscrupulous,  nevertheless 
has  his  own  definite  moral  standard.  Even  as  a 
boy,  he  might  steal,  but  never  beg;  he  might  lie, 
but  never  break  his  promise.  Louis  is  first,  last 
and  always  a  cad ;  and  the  chief  distinguishing 
feature  of  a  cad  is,  not  that  he  has  a  lower  stand- 


390  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

ard  than  other  men,  but  that  in  certain  directions 
he  has  no  moral  standard  at  all. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  matter  in  Pigs  in  Clover 
which  strikes  the  average  reader  as  mere  surplus- 
age,— questions  of  racial  antagonism,  imperialism 
in  South  Africa,  Cecil  Rhodes  and  his  Cape-to- 
Cairo  schemes.  The  vital  interest  of  the  book  is 
centered  in  the  life  history  of  just  one  man  and 
one  woman ;  in  other  words,  it  is  a  psychological 
problem, — and  theoretically,  the  psychological 
writer  who  contents  himself  with  a  smaller  canvas 
will  do  a  proportionately  stronger  piece  of  work. 
The  realist,  the  man  who  intentionally  touches 
upon  the  material  surface  of  things,  may  make  his 
picture  as  broad  as  he  pleases,  may  crowd  it  with 
figures  from  all  paths  of  life,  may  present  humanity 
in  battalions  and  in  regiments.  But  the  author 
whose  special  province  is  to  probe  down  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  interest  of 
whose  picture  centers  in  the  dingy  back  parlor  of  a 
London  lodging-house,  gains  nothing,  it  would 
seem,  from  sketching  a  map  of  the  entire  British 
Empire  over  the  margins  of  his  canvas.  And  yet 
one  hesitates  to  dogmatize  upon  a  point  like  this. 
As  already  said,  the  book  is  rugged,  unsym- 
metrical,  almost  crude  ;  and  yet,  without  that  back- 
ground of  intrigue,  and  imperialism  and  national 
unrest,  the  destinies  of  the  two  or  three  central 
figures  might  not  have  loomed  up  so  big  and  so 


"FRANK  DANBY"  391 

momentous.  It  is  as  if  we  saw  them  isolated  on  a 
height,  silhouetted  against  the  blackness  of  a 
storm-cloud. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  essential  details  of  the 
story  are  as  follows:  In  all  South  Africa,  there 
is  no  richer  vein  of  ore  than  that  known  as  the 
"  Geldenrief,"  and  in  it  centers  Karl  Althaus's 
scheme  for  a  colossal  fortune.  But  the  richest 
part  of  the  vein  dips  down  under  the  farm  of  one 
Piet  de  Groot,  a  pig-headed  old  Boer,  who  cares 
nothing  for  gold  mines  and  will  not  sell.  This 
farm  is  his  home,  also  his  family  burial  lot ;  his 
father  and  grandfather  lie  beneath  its  sod,  and  no 
Englishman  shall  own  a  foot  of  it.  But  Piet  is  old 
and  ill.  His  wife,  Joan,  is  a  young  Englishwoman, 
with  a  clear,  vivid  brain,  and  an  essentially  fem- 
inine temperament.  She  lives  estranged  from  him, 
but  sooner  or  later  she  will  inherit  the  farm.  All 
these  facts  are  well  known  to  Karl.  Furthermore, 
he  knows  that  a  crisis  is  imminent,  that  any  day  a 
political  bombshell,  like  the  Jameson  Raid,  may 
bring  the  Transvaal,  and  the  "  Geldenrief  "  with 
it,  under  English  control.  Meanwhile,  there  are 
two  things  which  an  unscrupulous  man  might  do. 
If  he  were  a  man  possessed  of  that  rare  and  in- 
definable compelling  power,  he  might  exert  it  to 
reduce  Piet  de  Groot's  English  wife  to  a  willing 
submission.  If,  like  Karl,  he  happened  to  have  in 
England  a  powerful  friend,  such  as  Lord  Heyward, 


392  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

— and  especially  if  he  was  in  possession  of  a 
shameful  secret  about  Lord  Heyward's  daughter, — ■ 
he  might,  through  Parliament,  exert  a  subtle  in- 
fluence upon  England's  foreign  policy.  Karl  Alt- 
haus,  being  neither  a  blackmailer  nor  a  seducer 
of  women,  misses  both  opportunities.  His  half- 
brother,  Louis,  being  an  adept  in  these  arts,  misses 
neither. 

Many  other  novelists,  both  before  and  since 
Pigs  in  Clover,  have  written  of  the  mysterious  at- 
traction of  sex,  that  indefinable  spell  which  a  par- 
ticular man  may  exert  over  a  particular  woman. 
The  idea,  however,  has  been  elaborated  and  anal- 
yzed by  "  Frank  Danby  "  in  a  way  that  seems  to 
leave  nothing  further  to  be  added : 

There  is  a  mystery  known  to  all  who  know  men 
and  women,  to  all  who  have  insight  into,  sympathy 
with,  or  understanding  of  their  fellow  travelers,  but 
it  is  blank  and  incomprehensible  to  the  Pharisees, 
and  to  all  who  read  and  run  at  the  same  time.  This 
is  the  mystery  that  fills  the  divorce  courts,  mocks  the 
incredulous  and  sets  at  naught  all  creeds  and  condi- 
tions. It  is  a  certain  something,  subtle,  sweet  and  rare, 
not  a  perfume,  not  a  touch,  but  an  echo  of  both,  light, 
elusive  and  pervading,  that  is  the  special  property  of 
some  loose-living  men,  a  property  that  is  be3rond  the 
reach  of  analysis,  but  recognizable  in  the  free-masonry 
of  the  passions  by  all  who  have  realized  its  existence. 
It  is  as  the  candle  to  the  moth,  as  the  rose  to  the  but- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  393 

terfly,  as  the  magnet  to  the  steel.  It  is  the  surface  lure 
of  sex,  it  is  the  all-compelling  whisper,  almost  it  seems 
that  to  hear  it  is  to  obey.  But  some  ears  are  deaf 
to  it,  some  few  dull  ears. 

This  is  the  paragraph  that  serves  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  chapters  detailing  the  conquest  of 
Joan  de  Groot  by  Louis  Althaus, — chapters  won- 
derful in  their  discernment  and  merciless  frank- 
ness, chapters  which  probably  portray  more 
nearly  than  any  other  contemporary  novel  the 
English  equivalent  of  a  Bel-Ami.  To  Louis, 
Joan's  attraction  was  largely,  but  not  wholly,  a 
matter  of  self-interest.  It  was  not  merely  that 
she  was  a  means  to  an  end,  a  stepping-stone  to 
the  possession  of  the  "  Geldenrief,"  thereby  en- 
abling him  to  steal  a  march  upon  his  brother,  Karl. 
He  had  not  been  ten  minutes  in  her  presence  before 
he  realized  that  "  her  bright,  elusive  womanhood 
was  shy  and  wild,  and  he  wanted  it,  as  men  always 
want  to  bring  down  wild  things."  And  as  for 
Joan,  in  spite  of  her  clear,  level  little  brain,  the 
virile  brain  that  had  made  her  a  personage  of  some 
consequence  in  South  Africa,  and  had  produced  one 
much  discussed  novel,  called  The  Kaffir  and  His 
Keeper, — she  knew  within  those  same  ten  minutes, 
"  that  she  was  lonely,  and  that  love,  the  love  of 
which  she  read  and  of  which  she  wrote,  had  been 
nothing  but  a  pulseless  world,  colder  than  print. 


394  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

Her  loneliness  shuddered  through  her  and  then  was 
gone,  and  the  low  voice  with  its  burred  '  r's  '  filled 
its  place." 

The  elaboration  of  this  drama  is  a  bit  of  rare 
narrative  art.  The  history  of  Louis's  conquest, 
the  deliberate,  remorseless  effort  to  bring  down  a 
"  wild  thing,"  is  narrated  with  a  probing  insist- 
ence, a  consummate  knowledge,  in  which  not  a  word 
rings  false.  "  He  blotted  out  thought  and  gave 
her  sensation  in  its  stead ;  she  vibrated  at  his  touch 
as  violin  strings  at  the  hand  of  a  musician,"  and 
again,  "  Always  he  met  her  moods  half-way.  If 
she  did  not  care  for  him  in  every  way,  if  she  was 
not  as  sure  as  he  was,  that  life  meant  nothing  for 
either  of  them  apart,  then  she  was  right.  He 
would  not  take  her  in  a  mood.  She  must  come  to 
him  because  she  wanted  him  as  he  wanted  her.  He 
was  an  artist  in  his  role."  The  best  test  of  the 
convincing  truth  of  this  picture  is  that  it  makes 
one  foresee  so  clearly  just  what  the  inevitable  out- 
come will  be.  A  "  dream  voyage  "  to  England,  a 
brief  month  or  two  of  paradise  in  a  cottage  near 
Bushey,  and  then  the  true  character  of  Louis 
gradually  betrays  itself,  the  smallness  of  his  moral 
stature,  his  abysmal  selfishness.  Joan  remains  the 
woman  of  moods  that  she  has  always  been,  and  he 
wearies  of  meeting  these  moods  half-way.  She  is 
a  woman  who  will  delay  dinner  for  half  an  hour  in 
order  to  gaze  at  a  sunset,   oblivious   of  his  im- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  395 

patience  and  his  hunger.  She  lacks  the  tact  to 
guard  against  the  inevitable  steak  coming  on 
burned,  cold  and  utterly  unpalatable.  Manlike, 
Louis  ceases  to  come  to  Bushey,  even  on  Sunday. 

Instead  Joan  went  to  him  in  London.  She  had  to 
meet  him  in  unfrequented  eating-houses,  at  small 
hotels,  where  in  private  rooms,  stiff  with  obtrusive 
velvet  furniture,  horrible  with  long  pauses  between 
the  courses,  with  the  leering  waiter  knocking  ostenta- 
tiously before  he  entered,  the  glamour  of  love  began  to 
fall  before  her  blue  eyes,  and  the  reality  of  it  to  lurk 
hideously  in  the  back  of  her  drugged  mind. 

Then  comes  the  memorable  scene,  on  the  night 
when  the  two  come  together,  each  in  possession  of  a 
momentous  secret,  she  with  the  knowledge  of  a 
strange  and  wonderful  prospect  that  for  the  first 
time  seems  to  justify  her  prayers  that  Piet  de 
Groot  may  die, — and,  woman-like,  she  fancies  that 
Louis  will  understand  and  share  her  joy.  The 
secret  that  Louis  carries  with  him  is  the  news  that 
Piet  de  Groot  is  already  dead, — but  it  is  news 
which  he  has  no  intention  of  sharing  with  Joan,  at 
least  not  yet,  not  until  he  has  secured  her  signa- 
ture to  a  full  and  absolute  release  of  her  interest 
in  the  "  Geldenrief."  But  in  thinking  that  he  can 
obtain  this,  he  shows  how  little  be  understands 
Joan's  character.  Temperamentally,  she  may  be 
frail,  but  in  money  dealings  she  is  scrupulously 
honest.     She  has  wronged  her  husband  enough  al- 


396  "  FRANK  DANBY  " 

ready ;  never  through  act  of  hers  shall  his  wishes 
in  regard  to  the  property  be  disregarded.  So,  in 
spite  of  her  bitter  dread  of  the  inevitable  "  scene," 
she  has  the  strength  to  deny  him,  to  argue  with 
him,  to  hold  him  off.  As  fate  wills  it,  within  an 
hour  after  he  has  left  her,  planning  to  renew  the 
attack,  she  learns  the  truth ;  that  her  husband  is 
dead,  that  Louis  knows  it,  that  he  has  not  and 
never  has  had  any  idea  of  marrying  her ;  in  short, 
that  his  interest  in  her,  first,  last  and  always,  has 
centered  in  the  "  Geldenrief."  She  knows  her  own 
pitiful  weakness,  she  foresees  that  if  not  to-day, 
then  to-morrow  or  the  day  after,  at  a  pleading 
word  from  him,  at  the  beloved  sound  of  those 
softly  burred  "  r's,"  she  will  sign  the  paper  as  he 
asks.  So  she  burns  her  ships  behind  her.  She 
seeks  a  lawyer,  executes  a  paper  relinquishing  all 
rights  in  her  dead  husband's  property,  posts  it  to 
South  Africa,  and  disappears  into  the  obscurity 
of  the  East  End  of  London. 

It  is  here,  some  months  later,  that  Karl  Alt- 
haus  finds  her,  destitute,  a  pitiful  wreck  of  her 
former  self,  with  too  frail  a  grip  on  life  even  to 
mourn  the  child  that  was  born  dead.  It  is  from 
her  lips  that  Karl  learns  of  the  share  that  Louis 
has  had  in  her  misery. 

"  I  left  him.  He  didn't  leave  me,  he  didn't  desert 
me,   don't  think   it,   Karl.      He   was   disappointed   in 


"FRANK  DANBY"  397 

me.  I  didn't  want  to  be  a  drag  on  him.  I  knew  he 
was  dependent  upon  you.     I  knew  he  wasn't  rich " 

"  What!  "  he  shouted,  screamed  it  almost.  No  one 
had  ever  seen  Karl  like  this  before.  He  had  risen 
from  his  seat,  his  face  was  purple;  but  still  he  saw 
her,  terrified,  white. 

"  Go  on !    Go  on !    He  wasn't  rich " 

"Karl!" 

"  I'm  beside  myself.  Don't  mind  me, — he  wasn't 
rich,  you  say.  For  God's  sake,  go  on !  Oh,  my  God, 
don't  tell  me  he  left  you  without  money !  Oh,  my 
God,  the  thing  I've  reared!  " 

Karl  marries  her.  That  is  to  say,  he  gives  her 
the  shelter  of  his  name,  demanding  nothing,  ac- 
cepting nothing  beyond  the  privilege  of  reinstating 
her  in  the  world's  esteem  and  her  own  self-respect. 
Yet  his  very  generosity,  his  unvarying  considera- 
tion, his  careful  attempt  at  concealment  of  his 
own  feelings,  make  her  life  a  daily  punishment. 
"  Karl's  eyes,  which  seemed  to  her  pleading  eyes, 
Karl's  wishes,  when  she  thought  she  read  them, 
Karl's  hand  on  her  shoulder,  all  outraged  her ;  for 
in  her  life  there  was,  there  could  be,  but  one  man." 
There  is  the  keynote :  she  is  the  type  of  woman  in 
whose  life  there  could  be  but  one  man.  The  author 
might  have  written  finis  after  that  word,  instead  of 
forcing  us  to  follow  the  story  to  the  bitterness  of 
its  inevitable  end.  The  world  is  never  smaller  than 
when  it  contains  two  people  who  by  all  the  laws  of 


398  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

justice  and  honor  ought  never  to  meet  again.  It 
is  a  foregone  conclusion  that  sooner  or  later  Joan 
and  Louis  will  meet,  and  that  when  they  do,  he 
will  try  to  lure  her  back  to  him,  if  only  to  gratify 
a  contemptible  vanity  in  his  own  power  of  pleas- 
ing. And  if  Joan  once  hears  the  soft  tones  of  his 
voice,  with  that  unforgettable  foreign  burr,  she 
will  have  no  power  to  deny.  But  once  already 
Joan  has  had  the  strength  of  weakness,  she  has 
burned  her  bridges.  That  time  what  Louis  cov- 
eted was  money,  and  she  placed  it  beyond  his  de- 
sire and  her  weakness  b}f  relinquishing  her  own 
hold  upon  it.  This  time  it  is  something  more 
precious,  it  is  life  itself  that  she  must  relinquish, 
in  order  to  thwart  him ;  and  so  the  curtain  falls 
as  the  last  flicker  of  sensation  in  Joan's  dying 
brain  translates  the  futile  knocking  at  her  locked 
door  into  the  hammer-strokes  driving  home  the 
nails  into  her  coffin. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  subject-matter  in  The 
Sphinx,  artistically  the  second  in  importance 
among  "  Frank  Danby's  "  novels,  makes  it  inex- 
pedient to  analyze  it  at  similar  length.  Frankly, 
its  theme  is  The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  played 
with  variations.  As  an  experiment  in  construc- 
tion, it  has  an  almost  unique  interest.  Very  sel- 
dom has  a  novelist  ventured  to  take  for  the  central 
figure  a  dead  man, — no,  not  even  a  dead  man,  but 
the  mere  wraith  of  a  man's  memory,  the  imaginary 


"  FRANK  DANBY  "  399 

ideal  which  the  man's  own  actions  shattered  before 
his  death.  There  is  undeniably  something  in- 
finitely pathetic  in  the  figure  of  a  beautiful  and 
much-courted  woman,  stricken  down  by  some  ob- 
scure spinal  trouble,  at  the  very  hour  of  her  hus- 
band's need,  and  doomed  to  linger  on  through  years 
of  helpless  martyrdom,  branded  and  pilloried  by 
the  infamy  of  the  name  she  bears : 

Sybil  Heseltine,  whom  her  friends  called  the 
Sphinx,  was  a  hedonist,  with  level  brows  and  a  dead- 
white  skin,  who  wore  Egyptian  designs  on  her  Greek 
tea-gowns  and  talked  of  superabundant  health  and 
vigor  while  she  lay  perpetually  on  her  sofa,  propped 
up  by  silken  cushions,  vital  only  in  her  wonderful 
eyes. 

There  is  something  almost  uncanny  in  the  spell 
which  the  author  has  succeeded  in  casting  around 
this  woman,  whose  part  is  so  strange  and  dark  a 
riddle,  and  who  is  striving  so  pitifully  to  hold  to- 
gether a  little  coterie  of  the  faithful,  and  to  pre- 
serve a  halo  around  the  memory  of  the  man  who 
has  dragged  her  in  the  mire.  But  the  fact  re- 
mains that,  from  first  to  last,  the  atmosphere  of 
the  book  is  pathological.  To  discuss  it  frankly 
and  fully  would  be  possible  only  to  the  pages  of  a 
law  report  or  a  medical  journal.  Consequently, 
in  spite  of  the  book's  undeniable  power,  its  sin- 
cerity, its  pervading  quality  of  mercy,  one  feels 


400  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

that  it  belongs  to  the  order  of  books  which  were 
better  not  to  have  been  written  at  all. 

Baccarat  may  be  dismissed  even  more  sum- 
marily. It  may  be  compared  to  that  mongrel 
product  of  modern  architectural  economy,  the 
two-family  house.  Originally  the  first  half  of  it 
was  detached  and  rented  out  separately,  as  a 
magazine  novelette ;  and  the  second  half  of  it 
might  conceivably  have  likewise  been  offered  for 
separate  consumption.  The  theme  of  the  first  half 
was  a  blind  instinct  for  gambling  which,  like  a 
craving  for  a  deadly  drug,  sometimes  seizes  upon 
a  man  or  a  woman,  blunts  their  faculties,  drags 
them  down  from  one  ignominy  to  another.  The 
second  half  has  no  further  structural  connection 
with  the  first  than  merely  that  it  is  the  working 
out  of  one  particular  problem  resulting  from  one 
particular  infamy  into  which  a  woman  has  been 
dragged  by  her  gambling  passion.  She  might 
have  stooped  in  the  same  manner  from  any  one  of 
a  dozen  other  motives.  Gambling,  in  the  second 
half,  ceases  to  be  of  structural  importance.  The 
point  of  view  has  shifted  from  the  wife  to  the  hus- 
band ;  the  central  theme  is  no  longer  the  wife's 
frailty,  but  the  husband's  strength, — his  ability 
to  face  the  problem  of  granting  pardon  to  in- 
fidelity, the  problem  so  boldly  and  truthfully 
worked  out  in  a  score  of  Continental  novels,  from 
Margueritte's  Le  Pardon  to  d'Annunzio's  VInno- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  401 

cente.  Because  this  theme  has  been  supremely 
handled  by  other  writers,  and  also,  one  suspects, 
because  "  Frank  Danby  "  herself  was  conscious  of 
having  made  a  false  start  and  was  committed  to  a 
solution  that  lacks  the  ring  of  truth,  the  book 
suffers  sadly  by  way  of  contrast.  It  stands  as  a 
frail,  abortive  attempt,  interesting  chiefly  as  a 
conspicuous  instance  of  a  gifted  author's  lack  of 
self-criticism. 

This  brings  us  down  to  the  works  in  "  Frank 
Danby's  "  new  manner,  beginning  with  The  Heart 
of  a  Child.  The  central  theme  of  this  book  is  the 
vexed  question  whether  a  young  girl  born  in  the 
slums,  bred  in  the  gutter,  flung  at  the  most  critical 
years  of  her  life  into  the  noisome  atmosphere  of 
cheap  dancing  halls,  may  from  an  inborn  instinct 
succeed  in  protecting  herself  and  maintaining  her 
own  and  the  world's  respect.  That  is  a  theme 
which  one  would  gladly  have  seen  developed  with 
the  boldness  of  the  earlier  "  Frank  Danby,"  the 
"  Frank  Danby  "  of  a  decade  ago.  The  volume 
that  she  has  actually  written  is  handicapped  by 
its  neat  and  careful  structure,  its  preordained 
plan  of  ending  with  a  triumphant  social  rise  and  a 
marriage  to  a  peer  of  the  realm.  It  is  true  that 
she  has  handicapped  herself  by  making  her  spe- 
cific case  a  peculiarly  difficult  one ;  that  she  has 
taken  her  future  Gaiety  Girl,  Sally  Snape,  from 
the  most  dilapidated  and  depraved  rookery  to  be 


402  "FRANK  DANBY " 

found  in  the  London  slums ;  that  she  shows  her  to 
us  as  being  peculiarly  friendless  and  unguarded, 
and  almost  incredibly  unaware  of  the  dangers  that 
beset  her;  that  she  brings  her  repeatedly  in  con- 
tact with  the  sort  of  people  most  likely  to  do  her 
harm,  and  in  every  way  seems  to  have  tried  de- 
liberately to  make  the  conditions  so  extreme  as  to 
force  us  to  say,  "  If  there  is  an  avenue  of  escape 
for  Sally  Snape,  then  no  young  woman's  case  is 
hopeless."  Now,  considered  as  a  specific  story 
of  a  single  human  life,  The  Heart  of  a  Child  is  an 
uncommon  piece  of  sheer  narrative  dexterity ;  it 
convinces  us,  against  our  better  judgment,  that 
the  girl  escapes  unscathed,  and  not  merely  escapes, 
but  each  time  achieves  an  advantage  from  the  very 
circumstances  that  wrought  her  danger.  Not  un- 
til her  marriage  with  young  Lord  Kidderminster, 
does  a  doubt  insinuate  itself  that  the  career  of 
Sally  Snape  was  not  likely  to  have  been  quite  so 
unspotted  as  "  Frank  Danby v  has  so  engross- 
ingly  depicted  it.  But  if  we  regard  it,  not  as  a 
specific  story,  but  as  the  solution  of  a  general 
thesis,  her  answer  must  be  epitomized  somewhat 
after  this  fashion :  that  a  young  woman  who  goes 
upon  the  stage,  unless  surrounded  by  special  safe- 
guards of  money  and  influence,  finds  herself  beset 
by  such  a  host  of  insidious  dangers  that  she  simply 
has  not  a  ghost  of  a  chance,  unless  a  series  of 
small  miracles  arc  wrought  for  her  exclusive  bene- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  403 

fit.  This  is  probably  not  at  all  the  impression 
that  Mrs.  Frankau  wished  to  convey ;  yet  she  had 
no  right  to  expect  any  other  result  from  her  per- 
sistent use  of  that  most  tricky  and  least  justifiable 
device  known  to  novelists,  the  Intervention  of 
Fate.  And,  of  course,  by  doing  so,  instead  of 
solving  her  problem,  she  simply  begs  the  question. 
It  is  all  very  well,  we  tell  ourselves,  for  the  Sally 
Snapes  of  real  life  to  have  the  safeguard  of  un- 
awakened  desires,  the  innocent  heart  of  a  child, 
the  instinctive  aversion  of  being  touched, — it  will 
all  count  for  nothing,  unless  fate  is  kind  enough 
to  intercede  for  her  over  and  over  again,  as  it  does 
in  the  case  of  this  particular  Sally  Snape. 
"  Frank  Danby "  starts  her  in  life  with  prac- 
tically no  chance,  until  fate  removes  her  patient 
drudge  of  a  mother,  her  drunken  brute  of  a  father. 
She  might  then  have  been  driven  onto  the  streets, 
had  not  two  immature  boys  out  of  pure  good  com- 
radeship offered  to  share  their  room  with  her. 
And  when  in  the  course  of  months  this  innocent 
propinquity  becomes  ill-advised,  fate  again  inter- 
venes by  ejecting  them  from  a  tenement  which  the 
city  has  condemned.  And  in  the  same  way,  all 
through  her  upward  course,  from  helper  in  a  jam 
factory  to  cloak  model  in  Madame  Violette's  West 
End  establishment,  frcm  cloak  model  to  Gaiety 
Girl,  she  is  saved — not  by  her  inborn  distaste  for 
men's  society  and  men's  ways,  her  ignorance  of 


404  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

what   their   attentions    mean,   but   by   wholly   ex- 
traneous circumstances;  the  wrecking  of  Charlie 
Peastone's  dogcart,  the  illness  of  Joe  Aaron's  wife, 
the  hundred  and  one  events,  large  or  small,  that 
cause   a   different  ending  to   the   day   from   that 
which  the  men  had  planned.     Yet  in  simple  jus- 
tice to  the  author,  it  should  be  added  that  while 
reading  The  Heart  of  a  Child,  we  forget  for  the 
time  being  that  there  are  such  things  as  theses 
and  technique  and  the  law  of  probabilities.     We 
think  of  it  simply  as  the  life-story  of  one  frail 
young   woman,   drifting   as   helplessly   as   a   cork 
along  the  conflicting  currents  of  London  life;  we 
are  caught,  just  as  the  various  characters  in  the 
story  are  caught,  with  the  magic  of  her  personal- 
ity, the  intangible,  elusive  quality  that  refuses  to 
be  analyzed,  but  that  Mrs.  Frankau  has  neverthe- 
less seized  and  flung  before  us  in  her  pages  with 
such  poignancy  and  power  that  we   feel  we  are 
being  allowed  to  probe  a  girl's  inmost  soul.     Al- 
though it  is  infected  with  the  taint  of  romanticism 
and  is  separated  by  an  incalculable  distance  from 
the  rugged  sincerity  of  Pigs  in  Clover,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  The  Heart  of  a  Child  contains  some 
character  study  that  ranks  with  the  best  of  its 
author's  earlier  period. 

Sebastian,  although  structurally  a  better  book 
than  The  Heart  of  a  Child,  has  analogous  faults, 
and  a  like  failure  to  carry  her  theme  to  its  logical 


"FRANK  DANBY"  405 

and  tragic  conclusion.  The  inferiority  of  the  half- 
breed  is  one  of  the  admitted  commonplaces  of 
biology.  The  fact  that  a  human  mongrel  usually 
possesses  all  the  vices  and  few  of  the  virtues  of 
the  two  parent  races  has  formed  the  basis  of  many 
a  tragedy,  both  in  fact  and  in  fiction.  This  is  a 
problem  which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  has  oc- 
cupied "  Frank  Danby  "  in  at  least  one  of  her 
books.  In  Pigs  in  Clover  the  plot  hinges  mainly 
upon  the  mental  and  moral  gulf  between  a  fine, 
large-hearted  Hebrew  gentleman,  full  of  high 
aspirations  and  pride  of  race,  and  a  currish, 
cowardly  mongrel,  who  has  added  to  the  worst 
qualities  of  his  father's  people  the  additional 
viciousness  acquired  from  his  mother,  a  girl  of  the 
streets.  But  in  Sebastian,  Mrs.  Frankau  has 
studied  a  problem  which,  while  analogous  to  this, 
is  really  quite  new  in  fiction,  namely,  the  problem 
whether  the  offspring  of  two  people  who,  although 
of  the  same  blood,  are  mentally  so  out  of  sym- 
pathy as  to  be  of  practically  a  different  race,  will 
not,  like  the  physical  half-breed,  inherit  the  weak- 
nesses of  both  parents  and  the  strength  of  neither. 
Sebastian  is  precisely  such  a  mental  and  moral 
half-breed. 

Sebastian's  father  is  a  London  merchant,  the 
head  of  a  proud  old  firm  of  paper  manufacturers. 
Although  he  has  married  into  a  social  stratum 
much  above  him,  and  understands  quite  well  his 


406  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

wife's  contempt  for  a  mere  money-maker  like 
himself,  he  remains  to  the  last  as  proud  of  his 
business  on  the  one  hand  as  he  is,  on  the  other,  of 
his  wife  and  son.  The  wife,  sprung  from  a  long 
line  of  literary  and  artistic  folk,  considers  herself 
splendidly  tolerant  of  her  husband's  inferiority. 
She  is  quite  content  to  accept  the  money  he  lav- 
ishes upon  her,  but  can  give  him  scarcely  any  of 
her  time  because  she  herself  is  an  author  whose 
novels  have  attained  quite  a  succes  d'estime.  Inci- 
cidentally,  they  bring  her  in  a  not  inconsiderable 
revenue,  which  characteristically  she  immediately 
converts  from  the  vulgar  form  of  money  into  the 
nobler  but  quite  useless  shape  of  rare  bric-a-brac. 
The  fact  that  her  husband  is  rapidly  killing  him- 
self by  overwork  and  that  she  might  have  light- 
ened his  burden  is  a  detail  which  never  pierces 
through  the  self-absorption  of  her  artistic  tem- 
perament. Sebastian,  the  product  of  this  ill- 
assorted  union,  is  from  early  childhood  admittedly 
his  mother's  child,  the  heir  to  her  hereditary  gifts. 
It  never  occurs  to  his  father,  save  as  a  foolish  and 
unattainable  longing,  that  he  might  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  trade  and  carry  on  the  firm  name 
which  otherwise  must  perish.  It  is  an  understood 
thing  that  Sebastian  is  to  be  a  literary  genius, 
that  he  is  to  go  through  Eton  and  Cambridge, 
and  whatever  further  training  is  needed,  regard- 
less of  time  or  cost.     But  somehow  matters  do  not 


"FRANK  DANBY"  407 

work  out  quite  in  the  prescribed  way.  In  school, 
his  masters  recognize  him  as  a  precocious  genius 
— only  they  discover  more  precosity  than  genius. 
His  verse  is  good,  but  not  quite  good  enough ;  and 
somehow  the  prizes  always  just  escape  him.  To 
the  real  artistic  temperament,  such  as  that  of  his 
mother,  the  consciousness  of  good  work,  sincerely 
done,  would  have  been  reward  enough.  Sebastian, 
however,  must  have  the  acclaim  of  public  recogni- 
tion, the  substantial  reward  of  a  money  prize. 
The  business  instinct  inherited  from  the  father 
demands  an  equivalent  for  value  received.  This  is 
why,  to  his  mother's  distress,  he  turns  his  back  on 
Eton  and  Cambridge. 

But  another  motive,  born  of  the  shrewd  observa- 
tion that  is  not  a  heritage  from  his  mother,  leads 
him  definitely  to  abandon  literature  and  go  into 
business,  the  paper  business  of  his  father  and  his 
uncles — and  this  impulse  is  simply  and  solely  the 
discovery  that  his  father  is  a  desperately  sick  man, 
who  may  at  any  day  or  hour  be  stricken  with 
death.  Curiously  enough,  he  discovers  that  while 
he  had  always  loved  languages  and  hated  mathe- 
matics, the  rudiments  of  business  and  the  mere 
mechanical  task  of  casting  up  columns  come  to  him 
with  amazing  facility.  He  also  has  the  inborn  gift 
of  affability  and  persuasiveness ;  boy  though  he 
is,  the  business  grows  under  his  aid  and  guidance 
with  remarkable  strides.     And  so,  when  in  a  few 


408  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

brief  years  the  father  does  suddenly  die,  and  Se- 
bastian acquires  full  control,  he  launches  forth 
upon  a  scale  that  amazes  his  competitors,  frightens 
some  of  them,  and  secretly  amuses  others  who  fore- 
see the  inevitable  end.  For,  of  course,  Sebastian 
as  a  business  man  is  no  more  sterling  coin  than 
he  was  as  a  man  of  letters.  His  material  demand 
for  payment  spoiled  him  as  a  poet,  his  visionary 
temperament  spoils  him  for  a  merchant.  In  short, 
he  is  an  intellectual  half-breed,  with  all  the  weak- 
nesses of  the  business  man  and  the  man  of  letters, 
and  with  the  saving  qualities  of  neither.  Had  Mrs. 
Frankau  been  quite  honest  in  her  treatment  of  this 
problem  it  must  have  ended  in  failure — the  blotting 
out  of  the  unfit.  But  her  careful  and  circumscribed 
little  scaffolding  demanded  a  happy  ending,  and 
she  must  build  accordingly.  So  she  brings  to  the 
rescue  a  very  rich  and  very  generous  man  who 
happens  to  love  Sebastian's  widowed  mother,  and 
for  her  sake  is  willing  to  sink  a  few  millions  in 
Sebastian's  crippled  business — with  the  intention, 
however,  of  keeping  a  strong  guiding  hand  on  the 
lad's  future  movements.  Here,  as  in  The  Heart 
of  a  Child,  Mrs.  Frankau  has  begged  the  issue ; 
but  one  does  not  seriously  mind  it  because  the  real 
solution  is  sufficiently  obvious. 

This  brings  us  down  to  "  Frank  Danby's  "  latest 
volume,  with  the  self-explanatory  title,  Joseph  in 
Jeopardy.  Now,  partly  because  of  the  title,  partly 


"FRANK  DANBY"  409 

also  because  this  modern  Joseph  and  his  still  more 
modern  Delilah  loom  up  rather  large  in  the  book, 
it  is  quite  natural  for  the  average  reader  to  make 
the  mistake  of  regarding  their  relationship  and 
its  outcome  as  the  crucial  interest  of  the  volume, 
and  be  disappointed  in  the  ending  which,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  lady  in  question,  is  un- 
deniably an  anti-climax.  But  it  happens  that  to 
"  Frank  Danby  "  the  interest  centers  in  a  third 
character,  namely,  Joseph's  wife.  In  this  dis- 
quieting and  subversive  era  of  the  suffragette,  it 
is  pleasant  to  find  that  "  Frank  Danby  "  retains 
a  sane  and  wholesome  belief  in  the  old-fashioned 
domestic  virtues  and  the  courage  to  make  a  timid, 
unattractive  little  woman  win  a  difficult  victory 
solely  by  force  of  them.  But  the  book  well  de- 
serves to  be  examined  somewhat  more  in  detail. 
It  opens  with  the  ostentatious  marriage  of  Den- 
nis Passiful,  the  new  owner  of  Abinger's  famous 
art  gallery  in  Bond  Street,  to  Mabel,  only  daugh- 
ter of  Amos  Juxton,  millionaire  founder  of  "  Jux- 
ton's  Limited,"  which,  with  its  battle-cries  of 
"  Emancipation  for  Women  at  Last,"  and 
"  Pure  Food  served  hot  and  hot,"  contracts  for  a 
small  annual  subscription  to  serve  three  substan- 
tial meals  a  day,  delivered  to  the  home.  Dennis 
was  left  an  orphan  in  early  childhood  and  edu- 
cated,— although  this  he  does  not  know  until  later, 
— on  a   fund   raised  by   voluntary  contributions. 


410  "FRANK  DANBY" 

Among  the  contributors,  the  three  who  gave  most 
generously  were  the  good  Vicar  who  adopted  him, 
old  Abe  Abinger,  expert  art  dealer,  whose  art 
gallery  he  inherited,  and  Juxton,  whose  house  was 
a  second  home,  and  whose  daughter,  Mabel,  a 
kindly  fate  seemed  to  have  destined  for  his  wife. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Dennis  married  her,  not  for 
love,  but  out  of  pity,  and  with  never  one  thought 
of  the  Juxton  millions.  He  had  supposed  that 
Mabel  was  in  love  with  Roddy  Ainsworth;  but 
when  Roddy  went  off  to  the  colonies  with  a  musical 
comedy  company,  and  Dennis  found  Mabel  in 
tears,  he  helped  to  dry  her  eyes,  and  promptly 
stepped  into  the  breach,  reminding  her  that  there 
was  "  another  fellow  besides  Roddy."  To  the 
casual  beholder,  Mabel  seemed  scarcely  the  fitting 
mate  for  such  a  fine  specimen  of  English  manhood 
as  Dennis.  "  Even  in  her  wedding  dress,  and 
through  the  filmy  lace  that  softened  and  en- 
shrouded her,  one  could  sec  that  she  was  lean,  and 
her  back  a  little  rounded;  that  her  face  and  hair 
matched  in  a  dead  level  of  dun ;  that  she  had 
neither  style,  presence,  nor  beauty ;  that  she  looked 
every  day  of  her  six-and-twenty  years,  and  had 
no  grace  nor  compensating  charm."  Furthermore, 
she  had  no  conversation,  beyond  a  fund  of  incon- 
sequential details  about  household  affairs,  the 
servants,  the  marketing,  the  weekly  wash : 


"FRANK  DANBY"  411 

"  Dennis,  do  you  remember  if  you  have  had  five 
clean  shirts  since  Saturday?  I've  counted  them  over 
three  times,  but  I  can't  make  them  any  less.  And 
did  I  tell  you  those  new  socks  of  yours  are  going  into 
holes  so  fast?  I  wish  I  could  get  better  darning 
thread  here,  but  the  shops  are  really  very  poor. 
They've  torn  quite  a  hole  out  of  one  of  your  pyjamas 
at  the  laundry.  I  believe  it's  a  steam  laundry,  al- 
though they  assured  me  it  was  all  done  by  hand." 

In  fact,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Dennis  should 
have  soon  come  to  feel  that  "  his  whole  life  was 
permeated  with  soiled  linen,"  to  take  his  wife  more 
and  more  for  granted  and  see  less  and  less  of  her; 
so  that,  by  the  end  of  five  years,  while  there  had 
been  no  outward  break,  they  were  practically  liv- 
ing separate  lives.  It  was  during  the  fifth  year 
that  he  first  beheld  Lady  Diana  Wayne.  It  was 
at  a  theater  and  "  his  eyes,  before  they  had  time 
to  reach  the  stage,  were  arrested  by  the  most  per- 
fect back  he  had  ever  seen;  he  did  not  know  a 
living  woman's  back  could  be  so  beautiful." 

The  back  and  arm  absorbed  him  during  the  first 
act.  It  was  only  toward  the  end  of  it  that  he  was 
seized  by  an  overmastering  desire  to  see  the  face  that 
surmounted  this  wonderful  torso.  He  gratified  this 
desire  by  going  to  the  end  of  the  stalls  in  the  interval 
during  the  first  and  second  act.  The  dark  hair, 
parted  in  the  middle,  waved  loosely  into  that  roll  of 
hair   that   left   the   back   part  of   her   neck    visible. 


412  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

The  profile,  the  short  nose,  the  square  chin,  were  pure 
Greek.  She  turned  to  speak  to  the  man  by  her  side. 
The  movement  of  the  slender  neck  was  like  music. 
Dennis  could  see  the  penciled  brows  under  her  dark 
hair  and  the  iridescent  green  of  her  eyes. 

On  the  part  of  Lady  Diana,  as  well  as  Dennis, 
it  was  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight.  But  with  him, 
although  he  was  slow  to  realize  it,  it  was  a  strong 
man's  violent  passion  for  the  first  and  only  really 
beautiful  woman  he  had  ever  taken  in  his  arms. 
To  epitomize  the  history  of  their  playing  with  fire, 
the  subtlety  of  Lady  Diana's  temptations,  the  in- 
nate decency  that  saves  Dennis  from  himself, 
would  be  to  no  purpose.  It  is  all  done  with  ad- 
mirable art  and  subtle  understanding  of  men  and 
women.  But  just  a  few  further  details  must  be 
given,  in  order  to  make  the  end  intelligible.  Mabel 
has  a  brother,  Ted,  whose  wife,  Fanny,  is  a  ven- 
omous, unprincipled  little  wretch,  whose  heartless- 
ness  is  the  chief  factor  in  causing  her  husband's 
early  death.  Incidentally,  it  should  be  said  that 
the  chapters  recording  Ted  Juxton's  last  illness 
stand  out  as  some  of  the  best  work  "  Frank 
Danby  "  ever  did.  Now  Fanny,  among  her  other 
misdeeds,  is  carrying  on  an  intrigue  with  Cosmo 
Mcrritt,  the  brother  of  Lady  Diana.  There  is  no 
good  reason  why  Fanny  should  wish  to  hurt  Mabel, 
but  she  is  the  type  of  woman  who  cannot  bear  the 
thought  that  another  woman  is  better  than  her- 


"FRANK  DANBY"  413 

self;  so  she  tells  Cosmo  that  Roddy  Ainsworth, 
who  is  back  in  England  and  has  seen  a  good  deal 
of  the  Passifuls,  is  Mabel's  lover.  Lady  Diana, 
seizing  eagerly  upon  this  news,  makes  her  big 
blunder ;  she  tells  Dennis  what  she  has  heard 
about  his  wife,  urges  him  to  seek  a  divorce,  and 
suggests  that,  even  if  the  scandal  is  groundless,  it 
is  still  possible  to  doctor  up  the  evidence  so  as 
to  win ;  she  is  sure  there  is  enough  to  convince  a 
jury! 

There  was  a  flush  upon  his  forehead,  and  every 
thought  of  Diana  and  her  loveliness  left  his  mind. 
Mabel — that  Mabel's  name  should  be  used  in  this 
way,  her  reputation  threatened !  The  heat  in  his 
blood  was  different  now  and  more  generous.  He  was 
overwhelmed  with  sudden  anger  or  shame.  That  he 
should  have  to  defend  his  wife  to  Diana !  .  .  .  You 
must  understand  how  impossible  this  story  is  about 
my  wife;  I  must  make  you  understand.  My  wife!  '' 
he  said  the  words  again  and  was  conscious  of  the 
tenderness  in  his  heart:  "  My  wife  is  the  most  loyal, 
gentle,  faithful  ..."     He  could  not  go  on. 

From  this  hour,  Lady  Diana's  hold  upon  this 
modern  Joseph  is  at  an  end.  It  remains  only  to 
indicate  that  there  is  one  other  scene,  far  too  inti- 
mate to  be  clumsily  retold,  but  infinitely  pathetic 
and  strangely  wise,  in  which  Mabel,  all  uncon- 
scious of  the  powers  that  have  warred  against  her 


414  "FRANK  DANBY  " 

happiness,  in  her  utter  unselfishness  does  the  act 
and  speaks  the  words  that  inexpressibly  touch  her 
husband  and  eventually  bring  her  to  her  woman's 
kingdom,  "  the  kingdom  which  Juxton's  Limited 
and  the  Woman's  Suffrage  League  are  trying  so 
hard  and  so  successfully  to  demolish." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  much  fine  artistry  and  wise  un- 
derstanding of  human  nature,  which  makes  it  diffi- 
cult   to    discuss    this    latest    story    by    "  Frank 
Danby  "  otherwise  than  indulgently,  it  is  obvious 
that  its  value  is  impaired  by  a  pervading  strain 
of  sentimentalism.     On  sober  second  thought,  we 
are  no  more  convinced  of  Dennis's  fidelity  than  we 
previously  were  of   Sally   Snape's   innocence   and 
Sebastian's   rehabilitation  as   a  man  of  business. 
Mrs.  Frankau  still  remains  an  artist  of  the  first 
rank ;  she  has  mellowed  with  years  and,  because 
of  her  broader  charity,  her  greater  faith  in  human 
nature,  she  in  a  measure  disarms  criticism.     Yet 
in  the  course  of  the  evolution  she  has  undergone, 
she  has  sacrificed  rather  more  than  she  has  gained. 
She  no  longer  offends   fastidious,   sensitive  souls 
with  sordid,  unclean  environments,  shameless  and 
vicious  lives.     But   in  painting  men  and  women, 
not  as  they  are,  but  as  she  likes  to  believe  that 
they  might  be,   she  has  lost  that  sterling  mark 
which  makes  Pigs  in  Clover,  with  all  its  faults,  a 
work  of  genius, — the  mark  of  fearless  and  absolute 
truth. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
ARNOLD  BENNETT 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

Journalism  for  Women.  A  Practical  Guide.  London 
and  New  York:  John  Lane,  1898.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  53,  518;  Critic,  33,  201. 

A  Man  from  the  North.  London  and  New  York: 
John  Lane,  1898.  Reviewed:  Academy,  53,  348; 
Athenceum,  '98,  1,  370;  Bookman,  '07,  355. 

Polite  Farces  for  the  Drawing  Room.  London:  Lam- 
bey,  1899. 

The  Grand  Babylon  Hotel.  London:  Chatto,  1902. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  62,  54;  Athenceum,  '02,  1,  332; 
Spectator,  88,  146. 

Anna  of  the  Five  Towns.  London:  Chatto,  1902. 
New  York:  McClure,  Phillips,  1903.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  63,  256;  ib.  287;  Athenceum,  '02,  2,  446; 
Critic,  42,  563;  Spectator,  89,  407. 

The  Gates  of  Wrath.  A  Melodrama.  London: 
Chatto,  1903.  Reviewed:  Academy,  64,  106;  ib. 
129;  Athenceum,  '03,  1,  269- 

How  to  Become  an  Author.     London:  Pearson,  1903. 

Leonora.  London:  Chatto,  1903.  Reviewed:  Acad- 
emy, 65,  508;  Athen&um,  '03,  2,  578;  Spectator, 
91,  873. 

A  Great  Man.  London:  Chatto,  1904.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  66,  656;  Athenceum,  '04,  1,  717;  Spec- 
tator, 93,  58. 

Ballads  of  the  Briny  and  Other  Verses.  London: 
Gay  &  R.,  1904. 

417 


418  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Teresa  of  Walling  Street.  London:  Chatto,  1904. 
Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '04,  2,  586. 

Tales  of  the  Five  Towns.  London:  Chatto,  1905. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  68,  83;  Athenceum,  '05,  1, 
174;  Spectator,  94,  221. 

Loot  of  Cities.  London:  Alston  Rivers,  1905.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  69,  1009. 

Sacred  and  Profane  Love.  London:  Chatto,  1905. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  69,  1032;  Athenceum,  '05,  2, 
539- 

Hugo,  a  Fantasia  on  Modern  Themes.  London: 
Chatto,  1906;  New  York:  Buckles,  1906.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  70,  92;  Athenceum,  '06,  1,  131; 
Nation,  84,  61 ;  New  York  Times,  12,  11;  Spec- 
tator, 96,  152. 

Whom  God  Hath  Joined.  London:  Nutt,  1906.  Re- 
viewed: Athenceum,  '06,  2,  731. 

The  Ghost.  A  Fantasia,  etc.  London:  Chatto,  1907. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  72,  143;  Bookman  (London), 
32,  214;  New  York  Times,  12,  378;  Sat.  Rev., 
103,  274. 

The  Reasonable  Life.  Essays.  London:  Fifield, 
1907;  New  York:  Doran,  1910. 

The  Grim  Smile  of  the  Five  Towns.  Short  Stories. 
London:  Chapman,  1907-  Reviewed:  Academy, 
73,  731;  Bookman  (London),  32,  178;  Spectator, 
99,  169- 

The  City  of  Pleasure.  A  Fantasia,  etc.  London: 
Chatto,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  73,  42;  Athe- 
nceum, '07,  2,  579. 

Buried  Alive.  London:  Chapman,  1908;  New  York: 
Brentano's,  1910.  Reviewed:  Academy,  75,  19; 
Bookman,  31,  642;  Nation,  91,  365;  Spectator, 
101,  25. 

How  to  Live  on  Twenty-four  Hours  a  Day.  Lon- 
don: New  Age  Press,  1908;  New  York:  Doran, 
1910. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  419 

The  Old  Wives'  Tale.  London:  Chapman,  1908;  New 
York:  Doran,  1Q09.  Reviewed:  Nation  (London), 
5,  314;  Nation  (N.  Y.),  89,  356;  Independent,  67, 
547;  Spectator,  101,  950. 

The  Human  Machine.  London:  New  Age  Press, 
1908;  New  York,  Doran,  1910. 

Cupid  and  Commons  ens  e.  London:  New  Age  Press, 
1909. 

Literary  Taste  and  How  to  Form  It.  London:  New 
Age  Press,  1909;  New  York:  Doran,  1910. 

The  Glimpse.  London:  Chapman,  1909;  New  York: 
Appleton,  1909.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '09,  2, 
1522;  Nation  (London),  6,  133;  Spectator,  103, 
851. 

Helen  with  the  High  Hand.  London:  Chapman, 
1910 ;  New  York:  Doran,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
nceum, '10,  1,  455;  Dial,  49,  382;  Nation,  91,  472; 
Sat.  Rev.,  109,  469;  Spectator,  104,  548. 

What  the  Public  Wants.  A  Play  in  Four  Acts.  Lon- 
don: F.  Palmer,  1910;  New  York:  Doran,  1910. 
Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '09,  1,  683. 

Clayhanger.  London:  Methuen,  1910;  New  York: 
Dutton,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '10,  2,  453; 
Bookman  (London),  39,  45;  Bookman  (N.  Y.),  32, 
434;  Cur.  Lit.,  50,  107;  Dial,  49,  381;  Indep.,  69, 
928;  Nation  (London),  7,  920;  Nation  (N.  Y.), 
91,  472;  New  York  Times,  15,  599;  Nth.  Amer. 
Rev.,  192,  849;  Outlook,  96,  668;  Rev.  of  Rev., 
4>3,  117;  Sat.  Rev.,  110,  554;  Spectator,  105, 
654. 

Fame  and  Fiction:  An  Inquiry  into  Certain  Reputa- 
tions.   London:  Grant  Richards,  1910. 

The  Card.  London:  Methuen,  1911;  New  York  (un- 
der title,  Denry  the  Audacious):  Dutton,  1911. 
Reviewed:  Indep.,  70,  619;  Spectator,  106,  451. 

Hilda  Lessways.  London:  Methuen,  191 1 ;  New 
York:  Dutton,  1911. 


420  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  collaboration  with  Eden  Phillpotts: 

Sinews  of  War.  London:  Werner  Laurie,  1905.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  71,  503;  Athenceum,  '06,  2,  687. 

The  Statue.  London:  Cassel,  1908;  New  York: 
Moffat,  Yard,  1908.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '08,  1, 
476. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Beerbohm,  Max.  Article  based  on  What  the  Public 
Wants.    Sat.  Rev.,  107,  591. 

Bettany,  F.  C,  "Arnold  Bennett:  An  Appreciation," 
Bookman  (London),  39,  265.  Same  article,  Liv. 
Age,  369,  181. 

Bookman,  "Arnold  Bennett"  (Chronicle),  32,  3-4. 

Church  Quarterly ,  "  Democracy  in  English  Fiction," 
April,  19H;  Liv.  Age,  269,  7. 

Current  Literature,  "  Arnold  Bennett,  the  Novelist 
of  the  Five  Towns,"  50,  553. 

Current  Literature,  "  Bennett  on  the  Art  of  Living," 
51,  59. 

Dawson,  Corningsby  W.,  "  Arnold  Bennett,  the  Brit- 
ish Balzac,"  Book  News  Monthly,  29,  567. 

Harper's  Weekly,  "  A  Tribute  to  Arnold  Bennett," 
55,  35. 

Harris,  G.  W.,  "  Arnold  Bennett,  a  New  Master  in 
English  Fiction,"  Rev.  of  Rev.,  43,  506. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  "  Speaking  of  Mr.  Bennett,"  Har- 
per's, 122,  633. 

Nicoll,  Dr.  Robertson,  Article  based  on  The  Old 
Wives'  Tale.    British  Weekly,  1908. 

JOSEPH  CONRAD 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

Almayer's  Folly:  A  Story  of  an  Eastern  River.  Lon- 
don:   Unwin,    1895;   pop.   ed.,   Nash,    1904;    New 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  421 

York:  Macmillan,  1895.  Reviewed:  Academy,  47, 
502;  Athenaeum,  '95,  1,  671;  Bookman,  2,  39. 

An  Outcast  of  the  Islands.  London:  Unwin,  1896; 
New  York:  Appleton  (Town  and  Country  Libr. 
No.  198),  1896.  Reviewed:  Academy,  49,  525,  and 
73,  194;  Athenaeum,  '96,  2,  91 ;  Bookman,  4,  166; 
N.  Y.  Times,  '96,  Sept.  25,  10;  Sat.  Rev.,  81,  509. 

The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus:  A  Tale  of  the  Sea. 
London:  Heinemann,  1897;  New  York  (under  the 
title  of  The  Children  of  the  Sea),  Dodd,  Mead, 
1894;  new  ed.  (Phoenix  Series),  1904.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  53,  suppl.  Jan.  1,  1  and  53  and  163; 
Bookman,  8,  91 ;  Book  Buyer  (T.  R.  Sullivan),  16, 
350;  III.  London  News  (James  Payne),  112,  50, 
and  172;  Nation,  67,  53;  N.  Y.  Times,  '98,  May  21, 
344;  Pall  Mall  Mag.,  14,  428;  Speaker,  17,  83. 

Tales  of  Unrest.  London:  Unwin,  1898;  new  ed., 
1909;  New  York:  Scribner,  1898.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  53,  417,  and  56,  66;  Athenaum,  '98,  1, 
564;  Book  Buyer,  16,  350;  Lit.  World  (London), 
57,  534;  Nation,  67,  53. 

Lord  Jim:  A  Tale.  London:  Blackwood  &  S.,  1900; 
New  York:  Doubleday,  McCl.,  1900.  Serialized 
in  Blackwood's,  1900.  Reviewed:  Academy,  59, 
443;  Athenceum,  '00,  2,  576;  Bookman,  13,  187; 
N.  Y.  Times,  '00,  Nov.  10,  770,  and  Dec.  1,  836 
and  839;  Outlook,  66,  711;  Speaker,  N.S.,  3,  215; 
Spectator,  85,  753. 

Youth:  A  Narrative  and  Two  Other  Tales.  London: 
Blackwood,  1902;  New  York:  McClure,  Phillips1, 
1903.  Reviewed:  Academy,  63,  606;  Athenceum, 
'02,  2,  824;  Indep.,  55,  801;  Nation,  76,  478; 
N.  Y.  Times  (Alden),  '02,  Dec.  13,  898,  and  '03, 
Apr.  4,  224;  Speaker,  N.S.  (Masefield),  7,  442. 

Typhoon  and  Other  Stories.  London:  Heinemann, 
1903;  New  York  Typhoon  (published  separately), 
illus.,  Putnam,   1902;  Falk,  Amy  Foster,  To-mor- 


422  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

row:  Three  Stories,  McClure,  Phillips,  1903.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  64,  463;  Athenaeum,  '03,  1,  558; 
Bookman,  18,  310;  Forum,  34,  400;  Harper's 
Weekly,  46,  1412;  N.  Y.  Times,  '02,  Sept.  20,  626, 
and  '03,  Oct.  24,  756;  Reader,  1,  101. 

Nostromo:  A  Tale  of  the  Seaboard.  London  and  New 
York:  Harper,  1904.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '04, 
2,  619;  Bookman,  20,  217;  Critic,  46,  377;  Dial, 
38,  126;  Indep.,  58,  557;  N.  Y.  Times,  '04,  Oct.  29, 
735,  and  Dec.  31,  944;  Spectator,  93,  800. 

The  Mirror  of  the  Sea:  Memories  and  Impressions. 
London:  Methuen,  1906;  New  York:  Harper,  1906, 
Reviewed:  Academy,  71,  393;  Athenaeum,  '06,  2, 
513;  Outlook  (London),  18,  480;  Spectator,  97, 
888. 

The  Secret  Agent.  London:  Methuen,  1907;  New 
York:  Harper,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  74, 
413;  Athenceum,  '07,  2,  361;  Bookman  (Stewart 
Edward  White),  21,  531,  and  669;  Cur.  Lit.,  4>4<, 
223;  Dial,  43,  252;  Indep.,  64,  105;  Outlook  (Lon- 
don), 20,  652;  Outlook  (New  York),  87,  309; 
Spectator,  99,  400. 

A  Set  of  Six.  London:  Methuen,  1908.  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '08,  2,  237;  Outlook  (London),  22,  246; 
Spectator,  101,  237. 

A  Point  of  Honor:  A  Military  Tale.  (Being  the 
fifth  tale  in  the  preceding  volume.)  New  York: 
McClure,  Phillips,  1908.  Serialized  in  Forum, 
1908.  Reviewed:  Dial,  46,  263;  Indep.,  65,  1066; 
Nation,  87,  364;  N.  Y.  Times,  13,  612,  and 
616. 

Under  Western  Eyes.  London:  Methuen,  1911;  New 
York:  Harper,  19H-  Reviewed:  Academy,  81, 
699;  Athenceum,  '11,  2,  483;  Bookman,  34,  440; 
Cur.  Lit.,  52,  236;  Nation  (London),  10,  140;  N. 
Y.  Times,  16,  818;  Nth.  Amer.,  194,  935;  Sat.  Rev., 
112,  495. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  423 

A  Personal  Record.  London:  Methuen,  1912;  New 
York:  Harper,  1912. 

In  Collaboration  with  Ford  Madox  Hueffer: 

The  Inheritors:  An  Extravagant  Story.  London: 
Heinemann,  1901;  New  York:  McClure,  Phillips, 
1901.  Reviewed:  Academy,  60,  554,  and  61,  93; 
Athetueum,  '01,  2,  151;  N.  Y.  Times,  '01,  July  13, 
499,  and  Aug.  24,  603 ;  Outlook,  68,  458;  Spectator, 
87,  61. 

Romance:  A  Novel.  London:  Smith,  Elder,  1903; 
Nelson,  1909;  New  York:  McClure,  Phillips,  1904. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  65,  469;  Athenwum,  '03,  2, 
10;  Bookman,  20,  544;  Dial,  37,  37;  N.  Y.  Times, 
'04,  May  14,  325;  Outlook,  77,  424. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Academy,  "  Mr.  Conrad's  Way,"  64,  463;  references, 
55,  82,  and  66,   198. 

Alden,  W.  L.,  References  in  "  London  Letter,"  N.  Y. 
Times  Sup.,  '99,  May  6,  304,  and  '04,  Feb.  13,  109. 

Bjorkman,  E.,  "A  Master  of  Literary  Color,"  Rev. 
of  Rev.,  45,  557. 

Bookman,  "  Joseph  Conrad's  Home,"  with  illustra- 
tion (Chronicle),  19,  449. 

Book  Buyer,  "  Joseph  Conrad,"  16,  389. 

Clifford,  H,  "  The  Art  of  Joseph  Conrad,"  Spectator, 
89,  827;  same  article,  Living  Age,  236,  120;  "  The 
Genius  of  Joseph  Conrad,"  Nth.  Am.  Review,  178, 
842  and  reference,  Harper's  Weekly,  49,  59. 

Conrad,  Joseph,  "  The  Inheritors,"  author's  letter  to 
N.  Y.  Times  Sup.,  '01,  Aug.  24,  603. 

Curran,  E.  F.,  "Joseph  Conrad:  a  Master  of  Lan- 
guage," Catholic  World,  92,  796. 

Current  Literature,  Reference,  30,  222. 


424.  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Galsworthy,  John,  "  Joseph  Conrad,"  Fortnightly  Re- 
view, 89,  627;  same  article,  Living  Age,  257,  416. 

Gibbon,  Percival,  "  Critical  Sketch  of  Conrad,"  Book- 
man (London),  39,  177. 

Macy,  John  Albert,  "  The  Writings  of  Joseph  Con- 
rad," Atlantic  Monthly,  98,  697,  and  "  Joseph 
Conrad— A  Unique  Writer  of  the  Sea  "  (based  on 
the  preceding),  Current  Literature,  42,  58. 

Portraits  of  Conrad,  Academy,  55,  82;  Independent, 
65,  1066,  and  Review  of  Reviews,  27,  630. 

Vorse,  M.  H.,  "A  Writer  Who  Knows  the  Sea," 
Critic,  43,  280. 


"FRANK  DANBY" 

(Mrs.  Julia  Frankau) 
i.  published  volumes,  with  reviews 

a.  Published  under  Pseudonym: 

Dr.  Phillips:  A  Maida  Vale  Idyll.  London:  Vizetelly, 
1887;  Chicago:  Laird  (Pastime  Series  No.  16), 
1895. 

A  Babe  in  Bohemia.  London:  Blackett,  1889;  3d 
ed.,  1890;  New  York:  Ogilvie  (Fireside  Series  No. 
92),  1889- 

A  Copper  Crash:  Founded  on  Fact.  London:  Tri- 
scheler,  1889. 

Pigs  in  Clover.  London:  Heinemann,  1903;  Phila- 
delphia: Lippincott,  1903.  Reviewed:  Academy, 
64,  462  and  509;  Athenaeum,  '03,  1,  334;  Book- 
man, 17,  509;  Critic,  43,  374;  Dial,  35,  64;  Lamp, 
27,  160. 

Baccarat:  A  Novel.  London:  Heinemann,  1904;  pop. 
ed.,  1911;  Philadelphia:  Lippincott,  1904.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '04,  2,  870. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  425 

The  Sphinx's  Lawyer.  London:  Hcincmann,  1906; 
pop.  ed.,  1909;  New  York:  Stokes,  1906.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  70,  383;  Athenaeum,  '06,  1,  512. 

A  Coquette  in  Crape:  A  Tragedy  of  Circumstance. 
London:  Chatto,  1907;  new  ed./l910. 

The  Heart  of  a  Child.  Being  Passages  from  the 
Early  Life  of  Sally  Snape,  Lady  Kidderminster. 
London:  Hutchinson,  1908;  pop.  cd.,  1909;  New 
York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1908.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum, 
'08,  1,  349;  Bookman,  27,  303;  Dial  (W.  M. 
Payne),  44,  352;  Independent,  6*5,  551 ;  Nation,  86, 
333;  N.  Y.  Times,  13,  182,  and  337;  Outlook,  89, 
39;  Putnam's,  4,  241;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  37,  765;  Sat. 
Rev.,  105,  442;  Spectator,  100,  582. 

An  Incompleat  Etonian.  London:  Heinemann,  1909; 
New  York:  (under  title  of  Sebastian)  Macmillan 
Co.,  1909.  Reviewed:  Atlantic,  104,  684;  Forum, 
41,  482;  Indep.,  66,  1343;  Lit.  Dig.,  39,  441;  N. 
Y.  Times,  14,  270;  Outlook,  92,  290;  Sat.  Rev., 
107,  529;  Spectator,  102,  671. 

Let  the  Roof  Fall  In.  London:  Hutchinson,  1910; 
New  York:  Appleton,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum, 
'10,  2,  517;  Bookman,  32,  424. 

Joseph  in  Jeopardy.  London:  Hutchinson,  1912; 
New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1912. 

b.  Published  under  name  of  Mrs.  Julia  Frankau: 

Eighteenth  Century  Artists  and  Engravers :  William 
Ward,  A.R.A.,  and  James  Ward,  R.A.:  Their  Lives 
and  Works.  London:  Macmillan,  1904;  New  York: 
The  Macmillan  Company,  1904.  Reviewed:  Na- 
tion, 79,  464. 

Eighteenth  Century  Colour  Prints.  Essay  on  Cer- 
tain Stipple  Engravers  and  Their  Work  in  Colour. 
London:  Macmillan,  1901;  New  York:  Macmillan 
Co.,  1901.     Reviewed:  Nation,  72,  115. 


426  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Story  of  Emma,  Lady  Hamilton.  London:  Mac- 
millan,  1911;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1911. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Bookman,     The,     "  The     Literary    Work    of    Frank 

Danby,"  27,  7. 
Harris,  Frank,  Article  based  on  The  Story  of  Emma, 

Lady  Hamilton.     Academy,  81,  788  and  818. 
Marsh,    E.    C,    "The    Novels    of    Frank    Danby," 

Forum,  39,  538. 
Peck,  H.  T.,  Article  based  on  Pigs  in  Clover.     Cos- 

mopolitan,  36,  251. 

WILLIAM  FREND  DE  MORGAN 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

Joseph  Vance.  London:  Heinemann,  1906;  New 
York:  Henry  Holt,  1906.  Reviewed:  Academy,  71, 
112;  Athenaeum,  '06,  2,  97;  Bookman  (Mary  Moss), 
24,  277;  Cur.  Lit.,  42,  344;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne), 
42,  13;  Independent,  61,  1161;  Nation,  83,*287; 
N.  Y.  Times,  11,  620,  and  12,  395;  North  Amer. 
Rev.  (O.  H.  Dunbar),  183,  1187;  Outlook,  84,  582 
and  711;  Putnam's,  3,  112;  Sat.  Rev.,  102,  117; 
Spectator,  97,  172. 

Alice-f or- Short.  London:  Heinemann,  1907;  New 
York:  Henry  Holt,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy, 
13,  658;  Athenaeum,  '97,  2,  10;  Bookman  (Mary 
Moss),  25,  519;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  42,  375; 
Independent,  63,  397  and  1228;  Lit.  Digest,  35, 
272;  Nation,  84,  522;  N.  Y.  Times,  12,  363  and 
380;  North  Amer.  Rev.  (O.  H.  Dunbar),  186,  449; 
Outlook,  86,  475;  Putnam's,  3,  112;  Sat.  Rev.,  104, 
54;  Spectator,  99,  96. 

Somehow    Good.      London:    Heinemann,    1908;    New 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  427 

York:  Henry  Holt,  1908.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum, 
'08,  1,  252;  Bookman  (H.  W.  Boynton),  27,  17(5; 
Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  44,  132;  independent,  64, 
369;  Nation  (N.  Y.),  86,  152;  N.  Y.  Times,  13,  67 
and  337;  Outlook,  38,  511 ;  Putnam's  (E.  L.  Cary), 
4,  617;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  37,  767;  Sat.  Rev.,  105,  241 ; 
Spectator,  110,  230. 

It  Never  Can  Happen  Again.  London:  Heinemann, 
1909;  New  York:  Henry  Holt,  1909-  Reviewed: 
Athena-urn,  '09,  2,  691;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  47, 
384;  Nation  (London),  6,  414;  Nation  (N.  Y.), 
89,  532;  N.  Y.  Times,  14,  779;  Outlook,  93,  829; 
Spectator,  103,  953. 

An  Affair  of  Dishonor.  London:  Heinemann,  1910; 
New  York:  Henry  Holt,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '10,  2,  415;  Bookman,  32,  432;  Dial  (W.  M. 
Payne),  49,  286;  Independent,  69,  1217;  Nation 
(N.  Y.),  91,  264;  A7.  Y.  Times,  15,  520;  Outlook, 
96,  331;  Sat.  Rev.,  110,  364;  Spectator,  105,  804. 

A  Likely  Story.  London:  Heinemann,  1911;  New 
York:  Henry  Holt,  1911.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum, 
'11,  2,  621. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Adcock,  A.  St.  John,  "  William  de  Morgan,"  Book- 
man (London),  38,  195. 

Boynton,  H.  W.,  "  The  Literary  Work  of  de  Mor- 
gan," Nation  (N.  Y.),  89,  532. 

Cecil,  Eleanor,  article  based  on  Somehow  Good,  Liv. 
Age,  257,  567  (reprinted  from  Cornhill  Magazine). 

Hardin,  C.  P.,  "  A  Letter  to  William  de  Morgan," 
Atlantic,  106,  249- 

Harris,  S.  W.,  "  A  Master  Novelist,"  Rev.  of  Rev., 
42,  252. 

Living  Age,  "  The  Victorian  English  in  Joseph 
Vance,"  255,  811. 


428  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Lucas,  E.  V.,  "  William  de  Morgan,  Artist,  Potter, 
and  Novelist,"  Outlook,  90,  711. 

Outlook,  "  De  Morgan's  Confession,"  96,  375. 

Phelps,  W.  L.,  "  William  de  Morgan,"  in  Essays  on 
Modern  Novelists,  New  York:   1910. 

Sparrow,  W.  S.,  "  William  de  Morgan  and  his  Pot- 
tery," Studio   (London),   17,  222. 

Stoker,  Brain,  "  William  de  Morgan's  Habits  of 
Work,"  World's  Work,  16,  10,337. 

MRS.  HENRY  E.  DUDENEY 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

A  Man  with  a  Maid.  London:  Heinemann  (Pioneer 
Series),  1898.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '98,  1,  565; 
Academy,  53    (Suppl.   Feb.   19),  202. 

Hagar  of  Hamerton.  London:  Pearson,  1898.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '98,  1,  786. 

The  Maternity  of  Harriott  Wicken.  London:  Heine- 
mann, 1899;  pop.  ed.,  1910 ;  New  York:  Macmillan 
Co.,  1899-  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '99,  1,  527;  Dial, 
27,  74. 

Folly  Corner.  London:  Heinemann,  1900;  pop.  ed., 
1909;  New  York:  Holt,  1900.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '00,  1,  142;  Bookman,  11,  342;  Dial  (W. 
M.  Payne),  29,  12;  Sat.  Rev.,  89,  368;  Spectator, 
84,  176. 

Men  of  Marlowe's.  London:  Long,  1900;  New  York: 
Holt,  1900.  Reviewed:  Academy,  59,  383;  Book 
Buyer,  21,  300;  Bookman  (H.  f.  Peck),  12,  506; 
Outlook,  66,  517. 

The  Third  Floor.  London:  Methuen,  1901.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  60,  248;  Athenaium,  '01,  1,  495; 
Spectator,  86,  574. 

Spindle  and  Plough.  London:  Heinemann,  1901; 
New  York:  Dodd,  1902.     Reviewed:  Academy,  61, 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  429 

634;  Dial,  33,  61;  Indep.,  54,  1373;  Spectator,  87, 

287. 

Robin  Brilliant.  London:  Hodder  &  S.,  1902;  New 
York:  Dodd,  1903.  Reviewed,  Lamp,  26,  254; 
Spectator,  89,  839- 

The  Story  of  Susan.  London:  Heinemann,  1903; 
New  York:  Dodd,  1904.  Reviewed:  Academy,  65, 
504;  Athenaeum,  '03,  2,  424;  Independ.,  56,  1087; 
Sat.  Rev.,  90,  592;  Spectator,  91,  814. 

The  Wise  Woods.  London:  Heinemann,  1905.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  68,  592;  Athenaeum,  '05,  1, 
561. 

A  Country  Bunch.  London:  Hurst  &  B.,  1905.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  69,  809;  Athenaeum,  '05,  2,  240; 
Spectator,  95,   125. 

Gossips  Green.  London:  Cassell,  1906;  new  ed., 
1909.  Reviewed:  Academy,  71,  286;  Athenaeum, 
'06,  2,  362 ;  Spectator,  97,  579- 

The  Orchard  Thief.  London:  Heinemann,  1907; 
Boston  (under  the  title  of  Trespass)  :  Small,  May- 
nard,  1909-  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '07,  2,  650; 
N.  Y.  Times,  14,  584;  Outlook,  93,  276;  Sat.  Rev., 
104,  732;  Spectator,  99,  993. 

Rachel  Lorian.  London:  Heinemann,  1909;  New 
York:  Duffield,   1909-     Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '09, 

1,  127;  Bookman,  29,  187;  Nation,  88,  255;  N.  Y. 
Times,  14,  118;  Nth.  Amer.,  190,  268;  Sat.  Rev., 
107,  146;  Spectator,  102,  310. 

All  Times  Pass  Over.     London:  J.  Ouseley,  1909- 
The  Shoulder  Knot.     London:   Cassell,   1909;   New 
York:   Cassell,    1910.      Reviewed:   Athenaeum,   '09, 

2,  422;  Bookman,  31,  208;  Nation,  90,  318;  N.  Y. 
Times,  15,  105;    Nth.  Amer.,  192,  139- 

A  Sense  of  Scarlet:  and  Other  Stories.  London: 
Heinemann,  1909-  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '09,  2, 
727;  Spectator,  103,  1003. 

Married  When  Suited.     London:  S.  Paul,  1911.     Re- 


430  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

viewed:  Athenceum,  '11,  2,  215;  Nation  (London), 
10,  32. 

A  Large  Room.  London:  Heinemann,  1910.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  80,  43;  Athenceum,  '10,  2,  621. 

Maids'  Money.  London:  Heinemann,  1911;  New 
York:  Duftield,  1912.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '11, 
2,  729. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Bookman,  The,  "  The  Home  of  Mrs.  Dudeney,"  16, 

533. 
Bookman,  The   (London),  Sketch,  with  Portrait,  40, 

266. 
Independent,  The,  "  Mrs.  Dudeney,"  54,  2770. 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

From  the  Four  Winds.  (By  "  John  Sinjohn.") 
London:  Unwin,  1897.  Reviewed:  Academy,  52, 
Suppl.  July  17,  p.  35;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  56,  33. 

Jocelyn:  A  Tale.  (By  "  John  Sinjohn.")  London: 
Duckworth,   1898. 

Villa  Rubein:  A  Novel.  (By  "John  Sinjohn.") 
London:  Duckworth,  1900;  New  York:  Putnam, 
1908.  New  Edit,  Villa  Rubein  and  Other  Stories. 
London:  Duckworth,  1909-  Reviewed:  Academy, 
59,  420;  Bookman,  28,  47;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  62, 
458;  Nation,  87,   119  J  N.   Y.  Times,  13,  338  and 

427. 
A  Man  of  Devon.     (By  "John  Sinjohn.")     London: 

Blackwood,   1901.      Reviewed:  Academy,  61,  386; 

Athenceum,  '01,  2,  697. 
The   Island  Pharisees.     London:   Heinemann,   1904; 

new  ed.,  revised  and  re-writtcn:  Heinemann,  1908; 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  431 

New  York:  Putnam,  1904;  new  ed.,  Putnam,  1908. 
Reviewed:  Atheneeum,  '04,  1,  394;  Lit.  World,  N.S., 

69,  219;  Nation,  78,  501,  and  87,  120;  Spectator, 
92,  608. 

The  Man  of  Property.     London:   Heinemann,   1906 
New   York:    Putnam,    1906.      Reviewed:   Academy 

70,  309;  Atheneeum,  '06,  1,  446;  Outlook,  84,  941 
JV.  Y.  Times,  12,  394;  Putnam's  (C.  A.  Pratt),  2 
185;     Times     (London),    5,     116;    Spectator,    96 
587. 

The  Country  House.  London:  Heinemann,  1907 
New  York:  Putnam,  1907-  Reviewed :  Academy 
72,  251 ;  Atheneeum,  '07,  1,  348;  Bookman,  25,  497 
Cath.  World,  85,  680;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  43 
62;  Forum,  39,  114;  Independent,  63,  96;  Nation 
84,  414;  N.  Y.  Times  (Lewis  Melville),  12,  394 
Nth.  Amer.  (O.  H.  Dunbar),  185,  777;  Outlook 
86,  254;  Putnam's  (C.  A.  Pratt),  2,  186;  Sat.  Rev. 
103,  433;  Times  (London),  6,  77. 

A  Commentary.  London:  Richards,  1908;  Duck- 
worth, 1910 ;  New  York:  Putnam,  1908.  Reviewed: 
Atheneeum,  '08,  1,  126;  Nation,  87,  317;  Sat.  Rev., 
105,  826. 

Fraternity.  London:  Heinemann,  1909;  New  York: 
Putnam,  1909.  Reviewed:  Atheneeum,  '09,  1,  312; 
Atlantic,  103,  706;  Dial,  46,  369;  Forum,  41;  Lit. 
Digest,  38,  764;  Nation,  88,  466;  N.  Y.  Times,  14, 
160,  and  14,  374;  Outlook,  92,  19;  Putnam's  (H. 
W.  Boynton),  6,  495;  Sat.  Rev.,  107,  341. 

Plays:  The  Silver  Box.  Joy.  Strife.  London: 
Duckworth,  1909;  New  York:  Putnam,  1909-  Re- 
viewed: Nation,  89,  498;  N.  Y.  Tunes,  14,  477; 
Spectator,  102,  498. 

The  Silver  Box:  A  Comedy  in  Three  Acts.  London: 
Duckworth,  1910. 

Joy:  A  Play  on  the  letter  "  I  "  in  Three  Acts.  Lon- 
don: Duckworth,  1910. 


432  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Strife:  A  Drama  in  Three  Acts.  London:  Duck- 
worth, 1910.     Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '09,  1,  327. 

Justice:  A  Tragedy  in  Four  Acts.  London:  Duck- 
worth, 1910 ;  New  York:  Scribner,  1910.  Re- 
viewed: Athenceum,  '80,  2,  136;  Independent,  69, 
931;  Nation,  91,  398;  N.  Y.  Times,  15,  582. 

A  Motley.  London:  Heinemann,  1910;  New  York: 
Scribner,  1910.  Reviewed:  Bookman,  31,  642; 
Dial,  49,  70;  Nation,  91,  15;  Spectator,  105,  63. 

The  Patricians.  London:  Heinemann,  191 1;  New 
York:  Scribner,  19H.  Serialized  in  the  Atlantic, 
Oct.,  1910 — May,  1911.  Reviewed:  Academy,  80, 
554;  Athenceum,  '11,  1,  440;  Atlantic  (Margaret 
Sherwood),  108,  559;  Bellman  (R.  Burton),  10, 
562  ;  Bookman,  33,  318  ;  Cath.  World,  93,  393  ;  Dial, 
(W.  M.  Payne),  50,  442;  Independent,  70,  1372; 
Lit.  Digest,  42,  634 ;  Nation,  92,  399  5  N.  Y.  Times, 
16,  154  and  222;  Nth.  Amer.,  194,  154;  Outlook, 
97,  629;  Sat.  Rev.,  Ill,  337;  Spectator,  106,  408. 

Little  Dream:  An  Allegory  in  Six  Scenes.  London: 
Duckworth,  ipi  1 ;  New  York:  Scribner,  19H-  Re- 
viewed: Independent,  71,  46;  Nation,  93,  270;  N. 
Y.  Times,  16,  704;  Sat.  Rev.,  112,  88. 

The  Eldest  Son:  A  Play.     London:  Duckworth,  1912. 

The  Pigeon:  A  Fantasy  in  Three  Acts.  London: 
Duckworth,  1912. 

Plays.  Second  Series:  Justice,  The  Little  Dream, 
The  Eldest  Son.     London:  Duckworth,  1912. 

Wild  Oats:  Moods,  Songs,  and  Doggerels.  London: 
Heinemann,  1912;  New  York:  Scribner,  1912. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Baugham,  E.  A.,  "  Galsworthy  as  Dramatist,"  Fort- 
nightly, 91,  971. 

Bjorkman,  E.,  "Galsworthy:  an  Interpreter  of  Mo- 
dernity," Rev .  of  Rev.,  43,  634. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  433 

Current  Literature,  "  The  Dual  Genius  of  Gals- 
worthy," 48,  81. 

Current  Literature,  "  The  Vital  Literary  Art  of 
Galsworthy,"  45,  408. 

Dukes,  A.,  "  Study  of  Galsworthy,"  Modern  Dram- 
atists, 141. 

Findlater,  J.  H.,  "  Social  Problems  in  Fraternity," 
Liv.  Age,  264,  607. 

Kellogg,  P.  U.,  "  Strife:  a  Drama  of  the  Politics  of 
Industry,"  Survey,  23,  705. 

Macartney,  M.  H.  H.,  "  The  Novels  of  Galsworthy," 
Westminster  Rev.,  171,  682. 

Outlook,  The,  "  Galsworthy,  A  Writer  of  Distinc- 
tion," 100,  608. 

Skelton,  I.,  "Galsworthy:  an  Appreciation,"  The 
World  To-day,  21,  995. 

MAURICE  HEWLETT 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

Earthwork  out  of  Tuscany:  Impressions  and  Trans- 
lations. London:  Dent,  1895;  revised  ed.,  illus.  by 
J.  Kerr-Lanson,  Dent,  1899;  3d  ed.,  Macmillan, 
1901;  New  York:  Putnam,  1895;  rev.  ed.,  1899. 
Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '95,  1,  771;  Indep.,  52,  781. 

Masques  of  Dead  Florentines,  Death's  Choicest 
Pieces,  and  The  Great  Game.  London:  Dent, 
1895;  new  ed.,  1903. 

Songs  and  Meditations.  London:  Constable,  1896; 
New  York:  Macmillan,  1898.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
nceum,  '97,  2,  288. 

The  Forest  Lovers.  London:  Macmillan,  1898;  New 
York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1898.  Reviewed:  Academy, 
54,  57,  and  56,  66;  Book  Buyer  (M.  Merrington), 
17,  58. 

Pan   and   the    Young  Shepherd:  A   Pastoral  in   Two 


434  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts.  London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1898;  Lon- 
don: Heinemann,  1906;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co., 
1901.     Reviewed:  Academy,  55,  281. 

Little  Novels  of  Italy.  London:  Chapman,  1899; 
New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1899.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  57,  371;  Athenaeum,  '99,  2,  523. 

Life  and  Death  of  Richard  Yea-and-Nay.  London: 
Macmillan,  1900;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1900. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  59,  491 ;  Book  Buyer,  22,  144; 
Cath.  World,  72,  807;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  30, 
110;  Fortnightly,  75,  61;  Indep.,  53,  44;  Nation, 
72,  76;  Spectator,  85,  753. 

New  Canterbury  Tales.  London:  Constable,  1901; 
New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1901.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  61,  287;  Athenceum,  '01,  2,  516;  Atlantic 
(F.  J.  Mather,  Jr.),  89,  130;  Bookman,  14,  503; 
Critic,  40,  65;  Indep.,  53,  2652;  Outlook,  69,  423; 
Spectator,  87,  486. 

The  Queen's  Quair:  or,  Six  Years'  Tragedy.  Lon- 
don: Macmillan,  1904;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co., 

1904.  Reviewed:  Academy,  66,  684;  Athenceum, 
'04,  2,  72;  Cur.  Lit.,  37,  82;  Indep.,  56,  1502; 
Lamp,  28,  428;  Nation  (A.  M.  Logan),  79,  14; 
Outlook,  77,  421;  Sat.  Rev.,  98,  53;  Spectator, 
93,  21. 

The  Road  in  Tuscany;  A  Commentary.  Two  vols. 
London:  Macmillan,  1904;  new  ed.,  illus.  by  Joseph 
Pennell,   1906;   New   York:   Macmillan  Co.,   1904. 

Fond  Adventures :  Tales  of  the  Youth  of  the  World. 
London:    Macmillan,    1905;    New    York:    Harper, 

1905.  Reviewed:  Academy,  68,  419;  Athenamm, 
'05,  1,  716;  Indep.,  58,  130*9;  Spectator,  94,  680. 

The  Fool  Errant:  Memoirs  of  Francis- Anthony 
Strelley,  Esq.,  Citizen  of  Lucca.  London:  Heine- 
mann,  1905;  Newnes,  1907;  New  York:  Macmillan, 
1905.     Reviewed:  Indep.,  59,  519  and  1151. 

The  Stooping  Lady.     London:  Macmillan,  1907;  New 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  435 

York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1907.  Serialized  in  Fort- 
nightly and  Bookman,  Jan. -Dec.,  1907.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  73,  115;  Athenceum,  '07,  2,  475;  Spec- 
tator, 99,  574. 

The  Spanish  Jade.  London:  Cassell,  1908;  New 
York:  Doubleday,  Page,  1908.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '08,  1,  633;  Indep.,  65,  555;  Spectator,  101, 
64. 

Halfway  House:  A  Comedy  of  Degrees.  London: 
Chapman  &  H.,  1908;  New  York:  Scribner,  1908. 
Reviewed:  Indep.,  65,  555;  Sat.  Rev.,  106,  487; 
Spectator,  101,  1061. 

Artemision:  Idylls  and  Songs.  London:  E.  Mathews, 
1909;  New  York:  Scribner,  1909-  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '09,  1,  670;  Bookman,  29,  366;  Dial 
(W.  M.  Payne),  47,  98;  Indep.,  67,  658;  Nation 
(London),  5,  613;  Nation  (New  York),  89,  55; 
N.  Y.  Times,  14,  300;  Nth.  Amer.,  190,  704;  Rev. 
of  Rev.,  40,  123;  Spectator,  103,  19. 

Open  Country:  A  Comedy  with  a  Sting.  London: 
Macmillan,  1909;  New  York:  Scribner,  1909.  Re- 
viewed: Athenceum,  '09,  2,  325;  Bookman,  30,  263; 
Dial,  47,  237;  Indep.,  68,  152;  Nation,  89,  305; 
N.  Y.  Times,  14,  565;  Nth.  Amer.,  190,  838;  Out- 
look, 93,  276;  Sat.  Rev.,  108,  320. 

Ruinous  Face.  New  York:  Harper,  1909-  Re- 
viewed: Dial,  47,  464;  Outlook,  93,  559- 

Letters  to  Sanchia  upon  Things  as  They  Are:  Ex- 
tracted from  the  Correspondence  of  Mr.  John 
Maxwell  Senhouse.  London:  Macmillan,  1910; 
New  York:  Scribner,  1910.  Serialized  in  Fort- 
nightly and  Putnam's,  July-Sept.,  1909.  Reviewed: 
Indep.,  69,  652;  Nation,  90,  610;  N.  Y.  Times,  15, 
431;  Outlook,  96,  302. 

Rest  Harrow:  A  Comedy  of  Resolution.  London: 
Macmillan,  1910;  New  York:  Scribner,  1910.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '10,  2,  353;  Bookman,  32,  171; 


436  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Dial,  49,  287;  Indep.,  69,  651 ;  Lit.  Dig.,  41,  819 
Nation   (London),  8,   136;  N.  Y.  Times,   15,  491 
Outlook,  96,  302;  Sat.  Rev.,  110,  427;  Spectator 
105,  611. 
Brazenhead   the   Great.      London:    Smith,   E.,    191 1 
New  York:  Scribner,   191 1.     Reviewed:  Academy 

80,  456;  Athenoeum,  '11,  1,  473;  Bookman,  33,  415 
Indep.,  71,  206;  Lit.  Dig.,  42,  895;  Nation,  92 
1476;  N.  Y.  Times,  16,  222  and  303;  Outlook,  98 
11 ;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  43,  760. 

The  Agonists:  A  Trilogy  of  God  and  Man.  London 
Macmillan,  1911;  New  York:  Scribner,  1911.  Re 
viewed:  Academy,  80,  679;  Athenceum,  '11,  1,  622 
Bookman,  33,  632;  Sat.  Rev.,  Ill,  617. 

The  Song  of  Renny.  London:  Macmillan,  1911 
New  York:  Scribner,  1911.     Reviewed:  Academy 

81,  507;  Athenceum,  '11,  2,  385;  Bookman,  34 
303;  Lit.  Dig.,  43,  807;  Nation,  93,  468;  N.  Y 
Times,  16,  624;  Outlook,  99,  404. 

Mrs.     Launcelot,     Serialized,     Metropolitan     Mag., 
1911-12. 


II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Academy,  The,  "  Maurice  Hewlett,"  55,  429- 
Beerbohm,   Max,   "  Hewlett   at  the  Court   Theater," 

Sat.  Rev.,  101,  294. 
Book  News   Monthly,   The,   "  Maurice   Hewlett,  the 

Man  and  his  Career,"  29,  147. 
Book  News  Monthly,  The,  "  Hewlett  in  Politics,"  29, 

150. 
Bronner,  Milton,  Maurice  Hewlett:  Being  a  Critical 

Study   of  his   Prose  and  Poetry.      Boston:   J.   W. 

Luce,  1910. 
Bronner,  Milton,  "  Maurice  Hewlett,"  Indep.,  69,  652. 
Bronner,  Milton,  "  Hewlett  as  a  Poet,"  Critic,  42,  169- 
Current  Literature,  Sketch  of  Hewlett,  30,  553. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  437 

Current  Literature,  "  Hewlett,  Phraseur,"  32,  108. 

English  Illustrated  Magazine,  "  Maurice  Hewlett," 
with  Bibliography,  50,  426. 

Conrad,  Hermann,  "  Maurice  Hewlett,"  Preuss.  Jahr- 
buch,  105,  266. 

Hale,  Louise  Closser,  "  Hewlett's  Italy,"  Bookman, 
16,  134. 

Hancock,  A.  E.,  "  The  Style  of  Maurice  Hewlett," 
Era,  12,  32. 

Harris,  G.  W.,  "The  Work  of  Maurice  Hewlett," 
Rev.  of  Rev.,  40,  251. 

Harrison,  Frederic,  "  Maurice  Hewlett,"  Fortnightly, 
75,  61. 

Hartman,  "  Hewlett's  Literary  Style,"  Harper's  W., 
49,  577. 

Holbrook,  R.,  "  Probable  Sources  of  the  Fool  Er- 
rant," Bookman,  23,  447. 

Mabie,  Hamilton  Wright,  "  An  Appreciation  of 
Maurice  Hewlett,"  Bookman,  26,  360. 

Macdonell,  H,  "  Maurice  Hewlett,"  Bookman  (Lon- 
don), 38,   185. 

Marsh,  Edward  Clark,  "  Hewlett  and  his  Work," 
Forum,  29,  39. 

Marsh,  Edward  Clark,  "  Hewlett,  Meredithian," 
Bookman,  26,  361. 

Outlook,  The,  "  Literary  Personalities:  Maurice  Hew- 
lett," 81,  724. 

Outlook,  The,  "  Maurice  Hewlett:  A  Significant 
Writer,"  66,  877. 

Parrott,  T.  M.,  "  Maurice  Hewlett,"  Booklover's 
Magazine,  4s,  693. 

ROBERT  HICHENS 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

The  Green  Carnation.  London:  Heinemann  (pub- 
lished anonymously  in  Pioneer  Series),  1894;  New 


438  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

York:  Appleton,  1894;  reissue,  Kennerley,  1908. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  46,  348;  Athenaeum,  '94,  2, 
419  and  496;  Critic,  25,  228  and  255;  Lit.  World, 
N.S.,  50,  277. 

An  Imaginative  Man.  London:  Heinemann,  1895; 
Newnes,  1906;  New  York:  Appleton,  1895.  Re- 
viewed: Athenceum,  '92,  2,  219;  Critic,  27,  440; 
Dial,  19,  255;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  52,  50;  Spectator, 
75,  153. 

The  Folly  of  Eustace  and  Other  Stories.  London: 
Heinemann,  1896;  New  York:  Appleton,  1896. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  49,  445;  Critic,  29,  172;  Dial, 
21,  289;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  53,  431. 

Flames:  A  London  Phantasy.  London:  Heinemann, 
1897;  Chicago:  H.  S.  Stone,  1897.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  51,  376;  Critic,  30,  421;  Dial,  22,  308; 
Lit.   World,  N.S.,  55,  410. 

Byeways.  London:  Methuen,  1897;  Collins,  1907; 
New  York:  Dodd,  Mead,  1897.  Reviewed:  Acad- 
emy, 53,  2  (Suppl.  Jan.  1)  ;  Athenceum,  '98,  1,  49; 
Critic,  32,  230;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  57,  9- 

The  Londoners :  An  Absurdity.  London:  Heinemann, 
1898;  Chicago:  H.  S.  Stone,  1898.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  53,  548  (Suppl.  May  21);  Athenceum, 
'98,  1,  530;  Critic,  33,  300;  Bookman,  7,  526;  Dial 
(W.  M.  Payne),  25,  21;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  259; 
Spectator,  80,  630. 

Daughters  of  Babylon.  (In  collaboration  with  Wil- 
liam Barrett.)  London:  Macqueen,  1899;  Phila- 
delphia: Lippincott,  1899-  Reviewed:  Athenceum, 
'99,  1,  368;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  59,  217. 

The  Slave:  A  Romance.  London:  Heinemann,  1899; 
Chicago:  H.  S.  Stone,  1899-  Reviewed:  Academy, 
51,  601 ;  Athenceum,  '99,  2,  683;  Bookman,  11,  284; 
Lit.  World,  N.S.,  60,  397;  Spectator,  83,  662. 

Tongues  of  Conscience.  London:  Methuen,  1900; 
Collins,    1908;    New    York:    Stokes,    1900.     Re- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  439 

viewed:  Academy,  59,  282  and  383;  Athenaeum, 
'00,  2,  478;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  62,  346;  Spectator, 
85,  531. 

The  Prophet  of  Berkeley  Square.  London:  Methuen, 
1901;  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead,  1901.  Reviewed: 
Athenaeum,  '01,  2,  695;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  64,  455. 

Felix:  Three  Years  of  Life.  London:  Methuen,  1902; 
Amalgamated    Press,     1908;    New    York:    Stokes, 

1903.  Reviewed:  Athenatum,  '02,  2,  516;  Dial  (W. 
M.  Payne),  35,  63;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  66,  336;  In- 
dependent, 55,  1994. 

The  Woman  with  a  Fan.  London:  Methuen,  1904; 
Amalgamated    Press,    1907;    New    York:    Stokes, 

1904.  Reviewed:  Cur.  Lit.  (K.  D.  Sweetser),  37, 
430;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  37,  38;  Lit.  World,  N.S., 
69,  312. 

The  Garden  of  Allah.  London:  Methuen,  1904;  New 
York:  Stokes,  1905;  illustrated  edition,  1907 
Biskra  edition,  1911.  Reviewed:  Academy,  67 
424;  Ainslee's,  July,  1905;  Athenaeum,  '04,  585 
Atlantic,  95,  697;  Bookman  (D.  Osborne),  24,  378 
Book  News  (Norma  K.  Bright),  March,  1905 
Cath.  World,  81,  545;  Collier's,  June  11,  1905 
Critic  (C.  H.  Dunbar),  46,  474;  Dial,  38,  388 
Edinburgh  Rev.,  203,  79  (reprinted,  Liv.  Age,  248 
736);  Independent,  56,  787;  59,  1153;  Lit.  Digest 
March  4,  1905;  Lit.  World,  N.S.,  70,  383;  N.  Y 
Times,  10,  394;  Outlook,  79,  502;  Pub.  Opin.,  38 
214;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  32,  759;  Speaker,  Dec.  24,  1904 
Spectator,  93,  643. 

The  Black  Spaniel  and  Other  Stories.  London 
Methuen,  1905;  New  York:  Stokes,  1905.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '05,  2,  608;  Academy,  69,  1079 
Sat.  Rev.,  100,  600;  Spectator,  95,  658. 

The  Call  of  the  Blood.  London:  Methuen,  1906 
Amalgamated  Press,  1907;  New  York:  Harper 
1906.      Reviewed:  Academy,   71,   266;   Athenaeum 


440  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

'06,  2,  362;  Atlantic  (H.  J.  Smith),  100,  129; 
Bookman,  24,  377;  Cur.  Lit.,  41,  699;  Dial  (W.  M. 
Payne),  42,  143;  Independent,  61,  1229;  Lit.  Dig., 
33,  727  and  858;  London  Times,  5,  305;  Nation, 
83,  396;  N.  Y.  Times,  11,  719  and  796;  North 
Amer.  (Edith  B.  Brown),  183,  923;  Outlook,  84, 
581;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  35,  120;  Sat.  Rev.,  102,  401; 
Spectator,  97,  404. 

Barbary  Sheep.  New  York:  Harper,  1907;  London: 
Methuen,  1909-  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '09,  1,  641 ; 
Bookman  (E.  C.  Marsh),  26,  167;  Independent, 
63,  939;  Nation,  85,  211;  2V.  Y.  Times,  12,  535; 
Outlook,  87,  45. 

.4  Spirit  in  Prison.  London:  Hutchinson,  1908;  New 
York:  Harper,  1908;  Burt,  19U;  serialized  in 
Harper's  Weekly,  March- Aug.,  1908.  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '08,  2,  398;  Bookman,  28,  262;  Inde- 
pendent, 65,  947;  Nation,  87,  340;  N.  Y.  Times, 
13,  506,  615  and  743;  Spectator,  101,  636. 

Egypt  and  her  Monuments.  Illustrations  by  Jules 
Guerin.  London:  Hodder  &  S.,  1908;  New  York: 
Century  Co.,  1908 ;  serialized,  Century  Mag.,  Feb.- 
Aug.,  1908.  Reviewed:  Dial,  4<5,  409;  Internat. 
Studio,  36,  Suppl.  58;  Lit.  Dig.,  37,  901;  N.  Y. 
Times,  13,  751  and  773;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  38,  757; 
Spectator,  101,  Suppl.,  813. 

Bella  Donna:  A  Novel.  London:  Heinemann,  1908; 
Philadelphia:  Lippincott,  1908.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
nceum, '09,  2,  522;  Bookman,  30,  387;  Spectator, 
103,  795. 

The  Spell  of  Egypt.  (Cheaper  Reissue  of  Egypt  and 
Its  Monuments.}  London:  Hodder  &  S.,  1910; 
New  York:  Century,  1911. 

The  Holy  Land.  Illustrations  by  Jules  Guerin.  Lon- 
don: Hodder  &  S.,  1910;  New  York:  Century,  1910. 
Reviewed:  Bookman,  32,  387;  Cath.  World,  92, 
400;   Dial,  49,   469;   Independent,  69,   1250;  Int. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  441 

Studio,  42,  Suppl.,  50;  Lit.  Dig.,  41,  1101 ;  Nation, 
91,  558;  North  Amer.,  192,  841;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  42, 

759- 

The  Dweller  on  the  Threshold.  London:  Methuen, 
1911 ;  New  York:  Century  Co.,  1911;  serialized  in 
Century  Mag.,  Nov.,  1910-April,  1911.  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '11,  1,  597;  Atlantic,  108,  566;  Book- 
man, 33,  316;  Cath.  World,  93,  535;  Cur.  Lit.,  50, 
563;  Independent,  70,  671 ;  Lit.  Dig.,  42,  636;  Na- 
tion, 92,  603;  N.  Y.  Times,  16,  184;  Sat.  Rev., 
Ill,  590 ;  Spectator,  106,  893. 

The  Fruitful  Vine.  London:  Unwin,  1911;  New 
York:  Stokes,  191L  Reviewed:  Academy,  81,  827; 
Athenceum,  '11,  2,  518;  Bookman,  34,  308;  Cur. 
Lit.,  March,  1912;  Dial,  51,  470;  Independent, 
71,  987;  Lit.  Dig.,  43,  690;  Nation,  93,  419;  N.  Y. 
Times,  16,  602;  Outlook,  99,  405;  Sat.  Rev.,  112, 
679;  Spectator,  107,  862. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Academy,  "  Robert  Hichens,"  52,  493. 

Bookman,  "  Hichens  at  Taormina,"  29,  13. 

Gaines,  C.  H,  "Hichens:  An  Appreciation,"  Har- 
per's Weekly,  51,  1206. 

Marshall,  Edward,  "  Robert  Hichens  Talks  of  the 
Battle  of  the  Sexes,"  N.  Y.  Times,  Oct.  1,  1911. 

Nation,  "  The  Production  of  The  Garden  of  Allah," 
93,401. 

Outlook,  "  Hichens'  Opinions,"  99,  304. 

Outlook,  "  A  Successful  Novel  and  an  Unsuccessful 
Play,"  99,  699- 

Warren,  Garnet,  "  A  Good-by  Interview  with  Robert 
Hichens,"  N.  Y.  Herald,  Nov.  12,  1911. 

Waugh,  Arthur,  "  London  Letter,"  Critic,  27,  47. 


44£  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


ANTHONY  HOPE 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

A  Man  of  Mark.  London:  Methuen,  1890;  Nelson, 
1911;  New  York:  Holt  (Buckram  Ser.),  1895; 
Chicago:  Rand,  McNally  (Globe  Library),  1895; 
new  ed.  (Enterprise  Series,  No.  37),  Weeks,  1895. 

Father  Stafford:  A  Novel.  London:  Cassell,  1891; 
pop.  ed.,  1900;  New  York:  Cassell  (Sunshine 
Series  No.  87),  1891;  Holt,  new  ed.,  1901.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  40,  500. 

Mr.  Witt's  Widow:  A  Frivolous  Tale.  London:  Innes, 
1892;  pop.  ed.,  Ward,  Locke,  1911;  New  York: 
U.  S.  Book  Co.,  1892.  Reviewed:  Academy,  41, 
515;  Athenaeum,  '90,  1,  562. 

Sport  Royal  and  Other  Stories.  London:  Innes,  1893; 
New  York:  Holt  (Buckram  Series),  1895;  holiday 
ed.,  Harper,   1897.     Reviewed:  Academy,  43,  415. 

A  Change  of  Air.  London:  Methuen,  1893;  New 
York:  Holt  (Buckram  Series),  1894.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  44,  88. 

Half  a  Hero.  London:  Innes,  1893;  New  York: 
Harper  (Franklin  Sq.  Lib.),  1893;  new  ed.,  1895. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  44,  389. 

The  Prisoner  of  Zenda.  London:  Arrowsmith,  1894; 
new  ed.,  illus.  by  C.  D.  Gibson,  Arrowsmith, 
1898;  Nelson,  191 1;  New  York:  Holt,  1904; 
(People's  Library),  Amer.  News,  1899.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  45,  454. 

Dolly  Dialogues.  London:  (Westminster  Gazette  Li- 
brary) Office,  1894;  new  ed.,  reprinted  from  West. 
Gaz.,  West.  Gaz.  Office,  1896;  Nelson,  1911;  New 
York:  (Summer  Series,  No.  13),  Fenno,  1895; 
(Cambridge  Classics,  No.  34),  Hurst,  1896;  (in 
one  volume  with  Sport  Royal,  Superb  Series,  No. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  443 

23),  Caldwell,  1896;  Russell,  1901;  new  ed.,  Holt, 
1902.     Reviewed:  Bookman,  14,  504. 

The  God  in  the  Car.  London:  Methuen,  1894;  New 
York:  Appleton  (Town  &  C.  Lib.,  No.  154),  1894. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  46,  443. 

The  Indiscretion  of  the  Duchess:  A  Story.  London: 
Simpkin,  1894. 

The  Secret  of  Wardale  Court,  and  Other  Stories. 
London:  Wilson  &  M.,  1894.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '95,  1,  215. 

Chronicles  of  Count  Antonio.  London:  Methuen, 
1895;  New  York:  Appleton,  1895.  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '95,  2,  639. 

Comedies  of  Courtship.  London:  Innes,  1896;  pop. 
ed.,  Ward,  Locke,  191 1;  New  York:  Scribner, 
1896.  Reviewed:  Academy,  49,  173;  Athenceum, 
'96,  1,  215. 

The  Heart  of  the  Princess  Osra.  London:  Long- 
mans, 1896;  new  ed.,  illus.  by  John  Williamson, 
1900;  New  York:  Stokes,  1896;  (People's  Library, 
No.  12),  Amer.  News,  1900. 

Phroso.  London:  Methuen,  1897;  New  York: 
Stokes,  1896;  (People's  Library,  No.  4),  Amer. 
News,  1899.  Reviewed:  Academy,  51,  231;  Athe- 
nceum, '97,  1,  343. 

Simon  Dale.  London:  Illus.  by  W.  St.  J.  Hufer, 
Methuen,  1898;  New  York:  Stokes,  1898.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  53,  Suppl.,  Feb.  26,  229;  Athe- 
nceum, '98,  1,  217. 

Rupert  of  Hentzau.  London:  Illus.  by  C.  D.  Gibson, 
Arrowsmith,  1898;  New  York:  Holt,  1898.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  54,  125;  Athenceum,  '98,  2,  187. 

The  King's  Mirror.  London:  Methuen,  1899;  New 
York:  Appleton,  1899;  pop.  ed.,  Appleton,  1905. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  57,  429;  Athenceum,  '99,  2, 
382. 

Quisante.      London:     Methuen,     1900;     New     York: 


444  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Stokes,  1900 ;  (People's  Library,  No.  37),  Amer. 
News,  1903.  Reviewed:  Academy,  59,  409;  Athe- 
naeum, '00,  2,  475;  Bookman,  12,  231;  Edinburgh 
Rev.,  193,  158;  Sat.  Rev.,  90,  559;  Spectator,  85, 
494. 

Tristram  of  Blent.  London:  Murray,  1901;  New 
York:  McClure,  Phillips,  1901.  Reviewed:  Acad- 
emy, 61,  133;  Athenaeum,  '10,  2,  516;  Book  Buyer, 
23,  237;  Bookman,  14,  256;  Indep.,  53,  2844;  Out- 
look, 69,  239  and  430;  Westminster  Rev.  (E. 
Gerard),  156,  651. 

The  Intrusions  of  Peggy.  London:  Smith,  Elder, 
1902;  New  York:  Harper,  1902.  Reviewed:  Acad- 
emy, 63,  441;  Independent,  54,  2598;  Reader,  1, 
205;  Spectator,  89,  613. 

Double  Harness.  London:  Hutchinson,  1904;  New 
York:  McClure,  Phillips,  1904.  Reviewed:  Acad- 
emy, 67,  180;  Athenceum,  '04,  2,  344. 

A  Servant  of  the  People.  London:  Methuen,  1905; 
New  York:  Stokes,  1905.  Reviewed:  Academy,  69, 
1025;  Athenaeum,  '05,  2,  368;  Indep.,  59,  1045  and 
1051. 

Sophy  of  Krasnovia.  London:  Arrowsmith,  1906; 
New  York:  Harper,  1906.  Reviewed:  Athenceum, 
'06,  2,  508. 

Tales  of  Two  People.  London:  Methuen,  1907;  New 
York:  separate  publication  of  one  tale,  Helena's 
Path,  McClure,  1907.  Remaining  tales  published 
under  title  of  Love's  Logic,  and  Other  Stories. 
New  York:  McClure,  1908.  Reviewed:  A cademy,  13, 
117;  Athenaeum,  '07,  2,  440;  Spectator,  99,  437. 

The  Great  Miss  Driver.  London:  Methuen,  1908; 
New  York:  McClure,  1908.  Reviewed:  Athenceum, 
'08,  2,  397;  Indep.,  65,  1002;  Spectator,  101, 
636. 

Second  String.  London:  Nelson,  1910;  New  York: 
Doubleday,  Page,  1910.     Reviewed:  Nation  (Lon- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  445 

don),  7,  252;  Sat.  Rev.,  109,  532;  Spectator,  104, 
734. 
Mrs.  Maxon  Protests.  London:  Methuen,  1911 ;  New 
York:  Harper;  serialized  in  Metropol.  Mag.,  Oct., 
1910,  and  following  issues.  Reviewed:  Academy, 
81,  412;  Athenceum,  '11,  2,  293;  Bookman,  33, 
532;  Indep.,  71,  547;  Lit.  Dig.,  43,  214;  N.  Y. 
Times,  16,  372  and  407;  Sat.  Rev.,  112,  337. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL,    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Academy,  The,  "  Anthony  Hope,"  52,  489- 
Beerbohm,  Max,  "  Captain  Dieppe,  by  Anthony  Hope 

and  Harrison  Rhodes,"  Sat.  Rev.,  97,  264. 
Beerbohm,   Max,  "The   Talent  of  Anthony   Hope," 

Sat.  Rev.,  89,  169- 
Book  Buyer,  The,  Article  on  Anthony  Hope,  12,  489- 
Book  News  Monthly,  The,  Article  on  Anthony  Hope, 

13,  8,  and  16,  702. 
Critic,  The,  "  Anthony  Hope  as  Lecturer,"  31,  252. 
Lamp,  The,  Article  on  Anthony  Hope,  26,  187. 
Living  Age,  The,  "  The  Method  of  Anthony  Hope," 

255,  689. 
McCarthy,  Justin  Huntley,  "  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda 

on  the  Stage,"  Gentleman's  Mag.,  N.S.,  56,  315. 
Saturday    Review,    The,    "  The    Works    of    Anthony 

Hope,"  8,  145. 
Sherard,  R.  H,  "  Anthony  Hope,"  Idler,  8,  24. 

RUDYARD  KIPLING* 

The  various  editions  and  reprints  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
works,    and    the    Kiplingiana    of    all    sorts    that    has 

*  The  Kipling  Index  :  being  a  Guide  to  authorized  American 
Trade  Editions  maybe  had  free  from  Messrs.  Doubleday,  Page 
&  Co.,  Garden  City,  L.  I.,  N.  Y.,  upon  receipt  of  five  cents  for 
postage. 


446  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

accumulated  around  them  have  already  been  made 
the  subject  of  bibliographical  industry  so  often  that 
no  useful  purpose  would  be  served  by  doing  over 
again  here  in  a  necessarily  condensed  form  what 
has  already  been  done  thoroughly  elsewhere.  More- 
over, as  most  of  this  author's  work  consists  of  short 
stories  and  short  poems,  an  adequate  bibliography 
would  constitute  a  small  volume  in  itself.  It  seems 
sufficient  to  refer  to  a  few  of  the  best  sources,  from 
which  complete  lists  of  bibliographies  will  be  readily 
obtainable. 
Clemens,    Will    M.,    A    Ken    of    Kipling,    Toronto: 

Murray,  1899- 
Robertson,   W.,    The   Kipling    Guide   Book,   London: 

Holland  Book  Co.,  1899- 
Knowles,  F.  L.,  A  Kipling  Primer,  London:  Chatto, 

1900. 
Monkshood,  G.  F.,  Rudyard  Kipling,  the  Man  and 

His  Work,  London:  Greening,  1902. 
Notes  and  Queries,  Long  list  of  American  editions, 
in  issue  of  Jan.   1,   1902,  p.  4;  list  supplemented 
by   Col.    Pridieux   in   issue   of   Feb.    1,    1902,   and 
subsequent  numbers,  giving  list  of  Allahabad  books. 
Powell,  F.  York,  Article  in  English  Illustrated  Maga- 
zine, Vol.  SO,  1903-4. 
Young,  W.  Arthur,  A   Kipling  Dictionary,  London: 
Routledge,  1911;  New  York:  Dutton,  1912. 

WILLIAM  JOHN  LOCKE 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

At  the  Gates  of  Samaria:  A  Novel.  London:  Heine- 
mann,  1894;  Lane,  1905;  pop.  ed.,  1910.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  46,  553. 

The  Demagogue  and  Lady  Phayre.  London:  Heine- 
mann    (Pioneer   Series),    1895;    London   and   New 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  447 

York:  Lane,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  49,  218; 
Athenceum,  '96,  1,  248. 

A  Study  in  Shadows.  London:  Ward  &  D.,  1896; 
London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1898.  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '96,  1,  710. 

Derelicts.  London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1897;  Lon- 
don: Newnes,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  53, 
Suppl.,  Jan.  22,  94;  Athenceum,  '97,  2,  487. 

Idols.  London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1898-99;  Lon- 
don: Newnes,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  66,  18; 
Athenceum,  '98,  2,  925. 

The  White  Dove.  London  and  New  York:  Lane, 
1899;  pop.  ed.,  1911.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '00, 
1,  111;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  29,  24;  Sat.  Rev., 
89,  467;  Spectator,  84,  94. 

The  Usurper.  London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1901; 
pop.  ed.,  1911-  Reviewed:  Academy,  61,  462; 
Athenaeum,  '01,  2,  808;  Spectator,  87,  907. 

Where  Love  Is.  London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1903; 
London:  Newnes,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  65, 
328;  Athenceum,  '03,  2,  647;  Independent,  55, 
2936. 

The  Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne.  London  and  New 
York:  Lane,  1905;  pop.  ed.,  1910.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  68,  664;  Athenceum,  '05,  1,  587;  In- 
depen.,  59,  335. 

The  Beloved  Vagabond.  London  and  New  York: 
Lane,  1906.  Reviewed:  Academy,  71,  445;  Athe- 
naeum, '06,  2,  989;  Spectator,  97,  989- 

Septimus.  London:  Murray,  1909;  New  York:  Lane, 
1909;  serialized  (under  title  of  Simple  Septimus) 
in  American  Mag.,  May,  '08- Jan.,  '09.  Reviewed: 
Athenceum,  '09,  1,  193;  Atlantic,  103,  711;  Book- 
man, 28,  594;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  46,  263; 
Forum,  41,  180;  Indep.,  66,  699;  Nation,  88,  117; 
N.  Y.  Times,  14,  36  and  376;  Nth.  Amer.,  189, 
783;  Outlook,  91,  107;  Spectator,  102,  135. 


448  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Simon  the  Jester.  London  and  New  York:  Lane, 
1910 ;  serialized,  Amer.  Mag.,  Nov.,  1909-10.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '10,  1,  288  and  670;  Atlantic, 
106,  810;  Bookman,  31,  507;  Cath.  World,  91, 
692;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  49,  41 ;  Indep.,  69,  771 ; 
Nation,  90,  607;  N.  Y.  Times,  15,  347;  Outlook, 
95,  370;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  42,  124;  Sat.  Rev.,  109, 
698;  Spectator,  104,  1023. 

A  Christmas  Mystery:  The  Story  of  Three  Wise 
Men.  New  York:  Lane,  1910.  Reviewed:  Cath. 
World,  92,  387;  Dial,  49,  530;  Indep.,  69,  1241; 
Nation,  91,  577;  N.  Y.  Times,  15,  701. 

The  Glory  of  Clementina  Wing.  London:  Lane, 
1911 ;  New  York  (under  title  of  The  Glory  of 
Clementina):  Lane,  191L  Reviewed:  Academy, 
81,  113;  Atlantic,  108,  567;  Bellman,  11,  338; 
Bookman,  34,  76;  Cath.  World,  94,  105;  Dial,  51, 
202;  Indep.,  71,  317;  Lit.  Dig.,  43,  567;  Nation, 
93,  143;  N.  Y.  Times,  16,  481;  Outlook,  99,  259; 
Rev.  of  Rev.,  44,  382;  Sat.  Rev.,  112,  146;  Spec- 
tator, 107,  424. 

The  Joyous  Adventures  of  Aristide  Pujol.  London 
and  New  York:  Lane,  1912. 

Stella  Maris.  Serialized  in  Century  Mag.,  Jan.,  1912, 
and  subsequent  issues. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Bookman,  The,  "  The  Personal  Locke,"  28,  424. 
Burton,  Richard,  "  Locke  and  His  Literary  Labors," 

Book  News,  29,  369- 
Forman,  H.  J.,  Sketch  of  W.  J.  Locke,  Book  News, 

29,  373. 

ALFRED  OLLIVANT 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

Owd  Bob,  the  Grey  Dog  of  Kenmuir.  London: 
Methuen,    1898;    New    York    (under   the   title   of 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  449 

Bob,  Son  of  Battle):  Doubleday,  Page,  1898.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '98,  2,  605;  Academy,  55,  291. 

Danny:  The  Story  of  a  Dandie  Dinmont.  London: 
Murray,  1903;  New  York:  Doubleday,  Page,  1902. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  64,  178  and  205;  Athenaeum, 
'03,  1,  334;  Indep.,  55,  506. 

Redcoat  Captain:  A  Story  of  That  Country.  Lon- 
don: Murray,  1907;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co., 
1907.     Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '07,  2,  515. 

The  Gentleman:  A  Romance  of  the  Sea.  London: 
Murray,  1908;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1908. 
Reviewed,  Athenaeum,  '08,  2,  676. 

The  Taming  of  John  Blunt.  London:  Methuen,  1911 ; 
New  York:  Doubleday,  Page,  1911.  Reviewed: 
Bookman,  34,  435;  Spectator,  107,  907. 


II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Bookman,  The,  "  Concerning  Alfred  Ollivant,"  28, 
311. 

Phelps,  William  Lyon,  "The  Novels  of  Alfred  Ol- 
livant," Modern  Novelists,  159;  reprinted  from  In- 
dep., 67,  470. 


EDEN  PHILLPOTTS 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

The  End  of  a  Life.     London:  Simpkin,  1891- 

Folly  and  Fresh  Air.    London:  Trischeler,  1891;  rev. 

ed.,  illus.  by  J.  Ley  Pethridge,  Hurst,  1899;  new 

ed.,  Hurst  &  B.,  1907. 
Tiger's  Cub.     London:   Simpkin,   1892;  Arrowsmith, 

1904.     Reviewed:  Academy,  42,  68. 
Summer  Clouds  and  Other  Stories.     London:  Tuck, 

1893. 


450  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Some  Every-Day  Folk.    London:  Osgood,  1894. 

A  Deal  with  the  Devil.  London:  Bliss,  1895; 
Newnes,  1905.     Reviewed:  Academy,  47,  376. 

Down  Dartmoor  Way.  London:  Osgood,  1895.  Re- 
viewed: Athenaum,  '95,  2,  868. 

My  Laughing  Philosopher.  London:  Innes,  1896; 
Everett,  1909.  Reviewed:  Academy,  49,  444; 
Athenaeum,  '96,  1,  412;  Sat.  Rev.,  82,  68. 

Lying  Prophets.  London:  Innes,  1897;  New  York: 
Stokes,  1899-  Reviewed:  Academy,  51,  176;  Athe- 
naeum, '97,  1,  241. 

Children  of  the  Mist.  London:  Innes,  1898;  Meth- 
uen,  1905;  New  York:  Putnam,  1899.  Reviewed: 
Athenaeum,   '98,  2,  604. 

Loup-Garou!  London:  Sands,  1899-  Reviewed: 
Academy,  56,  683;  Athenaeum,  '99,  1,  432. 

The  Human  Boy.  London:  Methuen,  1899,  6th  ed., 
1901 ;  New  York:  Harper,  1900.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '99,  2,  221;  E elect.  Mag.,  134,  128;  Indep., 
52,  196;  Spectator,  83,  319- 

Sons  of  the  Morning.  London:  Methuen,  1900; 
Amalgamated  Press,  1909;  New  York:  Putnam, 
1900.  Reviewed:  Academy,  59,  360;  Athenaeum, 
'00,  2,  342;  Bookman  (Hovey),  12,  233;  Indep., 
52,  2454;  Ouilook,  66,  283;  Sat.  Rev.,  90,  592; 
Spectator,  85,  379- 

The  Good  Red  Earth.  London:  Arrowsmith,  1901 ; 
reprinted  (under  title  of  Johnny  Fortright),  1904. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  60,  425;  Athenaeum,  '01,  1, 
689;  Indep.,  53,  1744;  Outlook,  68,  180;  Spec- 
tator, 86,  773. 

The  Striking  Hours.  London:  Methuen,  1901.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  61,  173;  Athenaeum,  '01,  2,  221; 
Spectator,  87,  289. 

Fancy  Free.  London:  Methuen,  1901 ;  pop.  ed.,  1905. 
Reviewed:  Spectator,  87,  847. 

The  River.     London:   Methuen,   1902;   Nash,   1908; 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  451 

New  York:  Stokes,  1902.  Reviewed:  Academy,  63, 
469;  Athenaum,  '02,  2,  407;  Bookman,  16,  180; 
Critic,  42,  160;  Indep.,  54,  2834;  Spectator,  89, 
535. 

The  Transit  of  the  Red  Dragon,  and  Other  Tales. 
London:  Arrowsmith,  1903.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum, 
'03,  1,  400;  Spectator,  90,  459. 

The  Golden  Fetich.  London:  Harper,  1903;  New 
York:  Dodd,  1903. 

The  American  Prisoner.  London:  Methuen,  1904; 
Nelson,  1907;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1904. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  66,  247;  Athenaum,  '04,  1, 
236;  Indep.,  56,  500;  Spectator,  92,  188. 

The  Farm  of  the  Dagger.  London:  Newnes,  1904; 
Nelson,  1909;  New  York:  Dodd,  1904.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  67,  311. 

My  Devon  Year.  London:  Methuen,  1904.  Re- 
viewed: Athenamm,  '04,  1,  8. 

The  Secret  Woman.  London:  Methuen,  1905; 
(Handy  Modern  Fiction),  Collins,  1907;  New 
York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1905.     Reviewed:  Academy, 

68,  83;  Athenaeum,  '05,  1,  105;  Indep.,  51,  559, 
and  59,  1151;  Spectator,  94,  33. 

Knock  at  a  Venture.  London:  Methuen,  1905;  New 
York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1905.     Reviewed:  Academy, 

69,  906;  Athenaeum,  '05,  2,  368;  Indep.,  59,  1348. 
Up-Along     and     Down-Along.      London:     Methuen, 

1905.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '05,  2,  894. 

The  Portreeve.  London:  Methuen,  1906;  Amalga- 
mated   Press,    1909;    New    York:   Macmillan    Co., 

1906.  Reviewed:  Academy,  70,  139;  Athenceum, 
'06,  1,  194;  Indep.,  60,  1942  and  61,  1158. 

The  Unlucky  Number.     London:  Innes,  1906. 

My  Garder.  London:  (Country  Life  Library) 
Newnes,  1906;  New  York:  Scribner,   1907. 

The  Poacher's  Wife.  London:  Methuen,  1906.  Re- 
viewed: Athen&um,  '06,  2,  578. 


452  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Whirlwind.  London:  Chapman  &  H.,  1907; 
Cassell,  1908;  New  York:  McClure,  Ph.,  1907; 
serialized  in  Fortnightly,  Jan. -Dec.,  1906.  Re- 
viewed: Academy,  72,  Q5;  Athenaeum,  '07,  1,  129; 
Indep.,  62,  1090. 

The  Folk  Afield.  London:  Methuen,  1907;  New 
York:  Putnam,  1907.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '07, 
2,  686. 

The  Mother:  A  Novel.  London:  Ward,  L.,  1908; 
pop.  ed.,  1909;  New  York  (under  title  of  The 
Mother  of  the  Man):  Dodd,  1908;  serialized  in 
Bookman,  June,  1907-Mch.,  1908.  Reviewed: 
Athenaeum,  '08,  1,  221. 

The  Human  Boy  Again.  London:  Chapman  &  H., 
1908;  S.  Paul,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '08,  1, 
476;  Spectator,  100,  870. 

The  Virgin  in  Judgment.  London:  Cassell,  1909; 
New  York:  Moffat,  1908. 

The  Three  Brothers.  London:  Hutchinson,  1909; 
Cassell,  1910;  New  York:  Macmillan  Co.,  1909. 
Reviewed:  Athenamm,  '09,  1,  460;  Atlantic,  103, 
704;  Bookman,  29,  94;  Nation,  88,  282;  N.  Y. 
Times,  14,  103  and  378;  Outlook,  91,  532;  Put- 
nam's, 6,  494;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  39,  762. 

The  Fun  of  the  Fair.  London:  Murray,  1909-  Re- 
viewed: Athenaeum,  '09,  2,  205;  Spectator,  103,  170. 

The  Haven.  London:  Murray,  1909;  New  York: 
Lane,  1909-  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '09,  2,  521; 
N.  Y.  Times,  14,  740;  Sat.  Rev.,  108,  668;  Spec- 
tator, 103,  851. 

The  Thief  of  Virtue.  London:  Murray,  1910;  New 
York:  Lane,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '10,  1, 
337;  Atlantic,  106,  809;  Indep.,  68,  1091 ;  Nation, 
90,  435;  Nth.  Amer.,  192,  135;  Sat.  Rev.,  100,  374; 
Spectator,  104,  590. 

Tales  of  the  Tenements.  London:  Murray,  1910; 
New    York:    Lane,    1910.      Reviewed:    Athenaeum, 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  453 

'10,  2,  355;  N.  Y.  Times,  15,  650;  Sat.  Rev.,  110, 
398;  Spectator,  105,  612. 

The  Flint  Heart:  A  Fairy  Story.  London:  Smith,  E., 
1910;  New  York:  Dutton,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '10,  2,  762;  Bookman,  32,  404;  Indep.,  69, 
1259;  Lit.  Dig.,  41,  1044;  Nation,  91,  584;  N.  Y. 
Times,  15,  569;  Nth.  Amer.,  192,  851 ;  Rev.  of  Rev., 
42,  755. 

Wild  Fruit.  London  and  New  York:  Lane,  1910. 
Reviewed:  Academy,  79,  513;  Athenaeum,  '10,  2, 
762;  Dial,  50,  162;  Lit.  Dig.,  42,  80  and  222;  Na- 
tion, 92,  501;  N.  Y.  Times,  15,  718. 

Demeter's  Daughter.  London:  Methuen,  1911;  New 
York:  Lane,  1911.  Reviewed:  Academy,  80,  198; 
Athenceum,  '11,  1,  328;  Bookman,  33,  327;  Nation, 

92,  447;  N.  Y.  Times,  16,  237;  Rev.  of  Rev.,  43, 
750. 

The  Beacon.  London:  Unwin,  1911;  New  York: 
Lane  Co.,  191 1.  Reviewed:  Academy,  81,  246; 
Athenceum,  '11,  2,  237;  Bookman,  34,  442;  Nation, 

93,  575;  Outlook,  99,  788;  Sat.  Rev.,  112,  370. 
The  Dance  of  the  Months.     London:  Graves  &  G., 

1911. 

In  Collaboration  with  Arnold  Bennett: 

Sinews  of  War.  A  Romance  of  London  and  the  Sea. 
London:  T.  W.  Laurie,  1906;  Newnes,  1908;  New 
York  (under  title  of  Doubloons) :  McClure,  Ph., 
1906.  Reviewed:  Academy,  71,  503;  Athenceum, 
'06,  2,  687;  Indep.,  62,  385;  Spectator,  97,  938. 

The  Statue.  London:  Cassell,  1908;  pop.  ed.,  1911. 
Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '08,  1,  476. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Academy,  The,  "Some  Younger  Reputations:  Eden 
Phillpotts,"  55,  431. 


454  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Book  News  Monthly,  The,  "  Eden  Phillpotts,"  18,  89. 

Chapman,  E.  M.,  "  The  Newer  Fiction,"  in  English 
Literature  in  Account  with  Religion,  552. 

Colbron,  Grace  Isabel,  "  The  Quality  of  Phillpotts," 
Forum,  39,  542. 

Gilder,  Joseph  B.,  Article  on  Phillpotts,  Critic,  38,  22. 

Howells,  Wiliam  Dean,  "  The  Fiction  of  Phillpotts," 
Nth.  Amer.,  190,  15. 

Shelley,  H.  C,  "Phillpotts  and  Dartmoor,"  Book 
News,  28,  499- 

White,  M.  O.,  "  With  Phillpotts  in  Dartmoor,"  Out- 
look, 91,  194. 

MAY  SINCLAIR 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

Essays  in  Verse.     London:  Paul,  1892. 

Audrey  Craven.  London:  Blackwood  &  S.,  1897; 
New  York:  Author's  Ed.,  Holt,  1906.  Reviewed: 
Academy,  51  (Suppl.  June  12),  12;  Athenceum,  '97, 
2,  122. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nevill  Tyson.  London:  Blackwood  & 
S.,  1898;  Constable,  1909;  New  York  (under  title 
of  The  Tysons):  Holt,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy, 
55,  478 ;  Athenceum,  '98,  2,  786. 

Two  Sides  of  a  Question.  (Containing  Superseded 
and  The  Cosmopolitan.)  London:  Constable,  1901 ; 
New  York:  Superseded  reprinted  separately,  Au- 
thor's Edition,  Holt,  1906.  Reviewed:  Athenceum, 
'01,  1,  332;  Spectator,  96,  391. 

The  Divine  Fire.  London:  Constable,  1904;  Nash, 
1911;  New  York:  Holt,  1904.  Reviewed:  Nation, 
79,  419;  Spectator,  93,  1089. 

The  Helpmate:  A  Novel.  London:  Constable,  1907; 
New  York:  Holt,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  73, 
929;  Athenceum,  '07,  2,  204. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  455 

The  Judgment  of  Eve.  New  York:  Harper,  1908. 
Reviewed:  Independent,  64,  1039. 

Kitty  Tailleur.  London:  Constable,  1908;  New 
York  (under  title  of  The  Immortal  Moment) : 
Doubleday,  P.,  1008.  Reviewed:  Academy,  75,  17; 
Athenceum,  '08,  2,  122;  Spectator,  101,  237. 

The  Creators:  A  Comedy.  London:  Constable,  1910; 
New  York:  Century  Co.,  1910.  Reviewed:  Athe- 
naeum, '10,  2,  415;  Dial  (W.  M.  Payne),  49,  287; 
Indep.,  69,  1156;  N.  Y.  Times,  15,  584;  Nation 
(London),  8,  28;  Sat.  Rev.,  110,  688. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Cecil,  Lady  Robert,  "  The  Cant  of  Unconventionally 
and  The  Helpmate,"  Liv.  Age,  255,  579. 

Underhill,  E.,  A  Reply  to  the  Above  Article,  Liv. 
Age,  256,  323. 

JOHN  TREVENA 

I.    PUBLISHED    VOLUMES,    WITH    REVIEWS 

A  Pixy  in  Petticoats.  London:  (Anonymous),  A. 
Rivers,  1906;  new  ed.,  1908;  New  York:  Moffat, 
1909.     Reviewed:  Athenaeum,  '06,  2,  474. 

Arminel  of  the  West.  London:  A.  Rivers,  1907;  new 
ed.  (Evergreen  Novels),  1909;  New  York:  Moffat, 
1909.  Reviewed:  Academy,  72,  393;  Athenceum, 
'07,  1,  601;  Atlantic,  103,  710;  Bookman,  29,  189; 
Indep.,  66,  1082;  N.  Y.  Times,  14,  28. 

Furze  the  Cruel.  London:  A.  Rivers,  1907;  New 
York:  Moffat,  1907.  Reviewed:  Academy,  73,  66; 
Athenceum,  '07,  2,  683. 

Heather.  London:  A.  Rivers,  1908;  New  York:  Mof- 
fat, 1909.  Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '08,  2,  149; 
Bookman,  29,  525;  Nation,  88,  92;  N.  Y.  Times, 
14,  366. 


456  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Dartmoor  House  that  Jack  Built.  London:  A. 
Rivers,  1909.     Reviewed:  Athenceum,  '09,  1,  669- 

Granite:  A  Novel.  London:  A.  Rivers,  1909-  Re- 
viewed: Athen&um,  '09,  2,  758. 

Written  in  the  Rain.     London:  Mills  &  B.,  1910. 

Bracken.  London:  A.  Rivers,  1910;  New  York: 
Kennerley,  1912.     Reviewed:  Academy,  79,  447. 

II.    APPRECIATIONS,    SPECIAL    ARTICLES,    ETC. 

Bookman,  The,  "  The  Habits  of  John  Trevena,"  28,  3. 


INDEX 

OF  NAMES  AND  TITLES 


Abaft  the  Funnel  (Kip- 
ling),  124 

Academy,  The,  20,  282,  345, 
382 

A  fair  of  Dishonor,  An,  (De 
Morgan),  33,  49-51 

Alice- for-Short  (De  Mor- 
gan), 39-41,   53 

Alice  in  Wonderland  (Car- 
roll), 286 

Almayer's  Folly  (Conrad), 
7,   11,   12,   19 

Ambassadors,  The,  (James), 
193,   346 

Amy  Foster  (Conrad),  25- 
26 

Anna  of  the  Five  Towns 
(Bennett),   213,   221-222 

Anna  Karenina  (Tolstoy), 
113 

Annunzio,  d',  Gabriele,  299, 
349,  377,  400 

Apuleius,   282 

Arminel  of  the  West  (Tre- 
vena),  329,  331-333 

Assommoir,  L',   (Zola),  357 

At  the  End  of  the  Passage 
(Kipling),  142 

Athenaeum,  The,  101,  205, 
208 

Atlantic  Monthly,   The,  2 

Audrey  Craven  (Sinclair), 
256 

Babe  in  Bohemia,  A,  (Dan- 

by),  386 
Baccarat  (Danby),  386,  400- 

401 


Bagot,    Richard,   368 
Ballad     of     Reading     Gaol 

The,   (Wilde),  398 
Balzac,    Honore    de,   4,   358, 

359 
Bar  Sinister,  The,    (Davis), 

283 
Barbary    Sheep    (Hichens), 

365-366 
Barrack  -  Boom     Ballads 

(Kipling),  123,  130 
Barrie,  J.  M.,  286 
Battle    of    the    Weak,    The, 

(Dudeney),  322 
Bazan,  Emilia  Pardo,  378 
Beacon,     The      (Phillpotts), 

116-119 
Bella  Donna  (Hichens),  350, 

369-370 
Beloved       Vagabond,      The, 

(Locke),     148,     150,     153, 

155,  163-165,  167,  168,  358 
Below    the    Milldam     (Kip- 
ling),   143 
Bennett,     Arnold,     206-231, 

251     325 
Benson,  E.  F.,  233,  251 
Besant,   Sir   Walter,  233 
Between   Two   Thieves   (De- 

han),   378 
Beyond  the  Pale   (Kipling), 

142 
Black,  William,  97,  251 
Black  Beauty   (Sewell),  283 
Black   Spaniel,   The,    (Hich- 
ens), 348,  351,  352,  353 
Bob,    Son    of    Battle    (Olli- 

vant),  280,  282-285 


457 


458 


INDEX 


Bohlau,  Helene,  378 

Bohme,  Margarete,  378 

Bookman,  The,  120 

Boynton,  H.  W.,  52 

Bracken  (Trevena),  324, 
338-341 

Brazenhead  the  Great  (Hew- 
lett), 80,  82-85 

Brewster's  Millions  (Mc- 
Cutcheon),  216 

Browning,  Robert,  13 

Buondelmonte's  Saga  (Hew- 
lett), 78,  79 

Buried  Alive  (Bennett), 
217-218 

Cable,  George  W.,  95 

Call  of  the  Blood,  The, 
(Hiehens),   366-367 

Call  of  the  Wild,  The,  (Lon- 
don),  283 

Capsina,  The,  (Benson), 
233 

Card,  The,  (Bennett),  218- 
219 

Cecil,  Lady  Robert,  35 

Charlatan,  The,  (Gissing), 
251 

Chene  et  le  Roseau,  he, 
(La   Fontaine),   21 

Children  of  the  Mist  (Phill- 
potts),  94,  101-104,  105, 
107,   110,   113,  327 

Children  of  the  Sea  (Con- 
rad),   14,   20 

City  of  Pleasure,  The,  (Ben- 
nett), 216 

Clayhanger  (Bennett),  213, 
219,  226-230 

Collins,  Wilkie,  40 

Colossus,  The,  (Roberts), 
232 

Conan  Doyle,  Sir  Arthur,  50 

Conrad,  Joseph,  1-30,  33,  54, 
55,  56,  107,  204,  290 

Contemporary  Review,  The, 
2 


Copper  Crash  (Danby), 
386 

Country  House,  The,  (Gals- 
worthy),  182,   191-194 

Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd, 
The,  (Kipling),  142 

Crawford,  F.  Marion,  251, 
368 

Critic,    The,   344 

"Danby,    Frank,"    254,   255, 

376-414 
Danny    (Ollivant),  280 
Dante,  61 

Daudet,    Alphonse,   377 
Davis,      Richard      Harding, 

283 
Debdcle,  La  (Zola),  13 
Dehan,   Richard,   378 
De  Morgan,  William  Frend, 

31-53,    281 
Denry  the  Audacious  (Ben- 
nett), 217-219 
Departmental  Ditties    (Kip- 
ling),  123 
Derelicts    (Locke),    156-157, 

169 
Dickens,    Charles,    4,    8,    33, 

120,  178,  179 
Divine  Fire,  The,  (Sinclair), 

208,    252,    253,    254,    255, 

256,  262,  271-278,  279 
Dolly         Dialogues,         The, 

(Hope),     233,     234,     235, 

237-239,  244,  250 
Dop  Doctor,   The,    (Dehan), 

378 
Dr.   Phillips    (Danby),   379, 

387 
Drums  of  the  Fore-and-Aft, 

The,    (Kipling),   139 
Dudeney,   Mrs.   Henry,   297- 

323 
Dumas,  Alexandre,   236 
Du  Maurier,  George,  34 
Dweller    on    the    Threshold, 

The,  (Hiehens),  352 


INDEX 


459 


Earthwork  out  of  Tuscany, 
(Hewlett),   65 

Eighteenth  Century  Col- 
ored Prints  (Frankau), 
382 

Eliot,  George,  95 

Essays  in  Verse  (Sinclair), 
256 

Esther  Waters  (Moore),  101 

Falk   (Conrad),  26-28 

Felix  (Hichens),  357-359 

Fielding,  Henry,  120 

Fille  Elisa,  La,  (E.  and  J. 
de  Goncourt),  377 

Five  Nations,  The,  (Kip- 
ling),  130-135 

Flames  (Hichens),  343, 
351 

Flaubert,  Gustave,  8,  208, 
209,  230,  377 

Florence,  Villani's  History 
of,  58,  59 

Folly  Corner  (Dudeney), 
297,  299,  306-312,  313 

Fond  Adventures  (Hew- 
lett),  78 

Fool  Errant,  The,  (Hew- 
lett),  80-82 

Forest  Lovers,  The,  (Hew- 
lett), 20,  57,  65,  82,  87 

France,   Anatole,   153 

Frankau,  Mrs.  Julia  (see 
"Frank  Danby  "). 

Fraternity  (Galsworthy), 
178,    182,    194-199,   200 

Fromentin,  Eugene,  348,  349 

Fruitful  Vine,  The,  (Hich- 
ens), 350,  370-374 

Furze  the  Cruel  (Trevena), 
324,  328,  329,  333-337,  338, 
341 

Galdds,  Benito  Perez,  230 
Galsworthy,    John,    2,    3,    4, 

5,    21,    177-205,    251,    281, 

325 


Garden      of      Allah,      The, 

(Hichens),   342,   347,   350, 

353,   362-365,    370,    375 
Gautier,  Theophile,  349 
Gentleman,   The,   (Ollivant), 

50,  280,  289-296 
Gissing,   George,  208,  250 
Glimpse,      The,      (Bennett), 

217,  219-220 
Glory    of    Clementina,    The, 

(Locke),    172-175 
Glyn,   Elinor,  374 
God      in      the      Car,      The, 

(Hope),  232 
Golden     Ass,     The,      (Apu- 

leius),  282 
Golden  Fetich,   The,    (Phill- 

potts),   109 
Goncourt,      De,       (Edouard 

and  Jules),  208,  209,  230, 

377 
Good      Bed      Earth,      The, 

(Phillpotts),  107,  327 
Grand  Babylon  Hotel,   The, 

(Bennett),  215 
Granite       (Trevena),       333, 

338 
Great     Miss     Driver,     The, 

(Hope),   244-247 
Green        Carnation,        The, 

(Hichens),   342,   344,   348, 

351 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales,  286 
"Gyp,"   233 

Habitation  Enforced,  An, 
(Kipling),  143-144 

Haggard,  H.   Rider,   109 

Halfway  House  (Hewlett), 
56,   88-90 

Hans  Blinker    (Dodge),  41 

Hardy,  Thomas,  95 

Heart  of  a  Child,  The,  (Dan- 
by), 379,  382,  384,  401- 
404,  408 

Heart  of  Darkness  (Con- 
rad),   14,   24,   29 


460 


INDEX 


Heather      (Trevena),      328, 

330,  333,  337,  338 
Helena's  Path  (Hope),  243- 

244 
Helpmate,    The,    (Sinclair), 

252,  255,  262-269 
Hewlett,  Maurice,  50,  54-93, 

94 
Hichens,    Robert,    342-375 
Hilda   Lessways    (Bennett), 

227 
Hitopadega,  The,  137 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  52 
Hope,  Anthony,  232-251 
Howells,  William   Dean,  95, 

113,  206,  211,  230 
Hugo   (Bennett),  216 
Huysmans,  Joris  Karl,  377 

Idols      (Locke),     156,     159- 

160,   169 
Imaginative        Man,        An, 

(Hichens),   354-355 
Immortal       Moment,       The, 

(Sinclair),   269-271 
Incompleat      Etonian,      An, 

(Danby),  379,  382 
Indiscretion  of  the  Duchess, 

The,    (Hope),  235 
Innocente,    L'     (Annunzio), 

400 
Intrusions    of    Peggy,    The, 

(Hope),  250 
Island        Pharisees,         The, 

(Galsworthy),   180,   183 
"  Islanders,       The,"       (Kip- 
ling),  133,   135 
It      Never      Can      Happen 

Again    (De   Morgan),   45- 

48,  52 
Ivanhoe   (Scott),  291 

James,  Henry,  1,  8,  33,  128, 
130,   142,  152,  230,  346 

Joseph  in  Jeopardy  (Dan- 
by), 379,  380,  382,  408- 
414 


Joseph  Vance  (De  Morgan), 
32,  33,  34,  37-39,  50,  53 

Judgment  of  Eve,  The,  (Sin- 
clair), 255 

Jungle  Books,  The,  (Kip- 
ling), 127,  130,  135,  137, 
143,  282 

Just-So  Stories,  The,  (Kip- 
ling), 127,  282,  286 

Katasaritsagara,   The,  137 
Kim   (Kipling),  17,  55,  129, 

130,  135,  137-141 
Kipling,    Rudvard,    17,    54, 

55,  56,  122-147,  282 

La  Fontaine,  Jean  de,  21 

Lavedan,  Henri,  233 

Leonora  (Bennett),  221,  222 

"Lesson,  The,"  (Kipling), 
133,  135 

Let  the  Roof  Fall  In  (Dan- 
by), 386 

Letters  from  the  East 
(Kipling),    129 

Lettres  de  Jeunesse  (Zola), 
124 

Light  that  Failed,  The, 
(Kipling),  283 

Likely  Story,  A,  (De  Mor- 
gan), 33,  49,  51,  52 

Little  Novels  of  Italy  (Hew- 
lett), 78 

Little  White  Bird,  The, 
(Barrie),  286 

Locke,  William  John,  148- 
176,  325,  358 

Londoners,  The,  (Hichens), 
343,  351 

Loot  of  Cities,  The,  (Ben- 
nett), 216 

Lord  Jim  (Conrad),  21,  24, 
29,  204 

Loti,    Pierre,   349 

Loup-Qaroul  (Phillpotts), 
94 

Lourdes    (Zola),   348 


INDEX 


461 


Lucas,  E.  V.,  34 
Lying  Prophets  (Phillpotts), 
98-101 

JVlcCutcheon,  George  Barr, 
216 

McTeague    (Norris),   335 

Maartens,  Maarten,  251 

Maey,  John  A.,  2 

Maison  Tellier,  La,  (Mau- 
passant), 377 

Man  from  the  North,  A, 
(Bennett),   207,   209 

Man  of  Property,  The, 
(Galsworthy),  180,  181, 
183-191,    194,   200 

Man  Who  Would  Be  King, 
The,  (Kipling),  137 

"Mandalay"  (Kipling),  129 

Margueritte,  Paul,  400 

Mark  of  the  Beast,  The, 
(Kipling),   142 

Maternity  of  Harriott  Wick- 
en,  The,  (Dudeney),  301- 
306 

Maupassant,  Guy  de,  8,  152, 
208,  230,   376 

Maxwell,  William  B.,  251 

Men  of  Marlowe's  (Dude- 
ney), 297,  312-317 

Mendes,   Catulle,   359 

Meredith,  George,  33,  152, 
325 

Merrick,  Leonard,  207,  325 

Mill  on  the  Floss,  The, 
(Eliot),  95 

Mine  Own  People  (Kip- 
ling),  126 

Mirror  of  the  Sea,  The, 
(Conrad),    19,   29 

Moore,  F.  Frankfort,  233 

Moore,   George,   377 

Morals  of  Marcus  Ordeyne, 
The,  (Locke),  148,  150, 
153,  160-163,  166,  169 

Mother  of  the  Man,  The, 
(Phillpotts),   115 


Motley,     A,     (Galsworthy), 

200-201 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nevill  Tyson 

(Sinclair),  257-261 
Mrs.     Balhurst      (Kipling), 

144-146 
Mrs.   M  axon   Protests 

(Hope),  247-249 
Mummer's  Wife,  The, 

(Moore),  377 
Murger,  Henri,  153 

Nana  (Zola),  377 

Nell       Gwynn,       Comedian, 

(Moore),  233 
New  Canterbury  Tales,  The, 

(Hewlett),   78 
New  Review,  The,  17 
Nicoll,  Dr.  Robertson,  223 
Nigger     of     the     Narcissus, 

The,  (Conrad),  13,  14,  19, 

290 
Norris,  Frank,  334,  335,  336, 

337 
Nostromo    (Conrad),    21-24, 

29 

Octopus,  The,  (Norris),  336 

Old  Wives'  Tale,  The,  (Ben- 
nett), 206,  213,  219,  222- 
226 

Ollivant,  Alfred,  50,  94,  280- 
296 

On  the  City  Wall  (Kipling), 
142 

Open  Country  (Hewlett), 
88,  90-92 

Orange  Girl,  The,  (Besant), 
233 

Orchard  Thief,  The,  (Dude- 
ney), 297 

"Ouida,"  154,  155,  282 

Outcast  of  the  Island,  The, 
(Conrad),  11 

Pardon,  Le,  (Margueritte), 
400 


462 


INDEX 


Pascarel    ("Ouida"),   154 

Patrician,  The,  (Gals- 
worthy), 183,  200,  202- 
203,   205 

Pemberton,  Max,  50,  215 

Personal  Record,  A,  (Con- 
rad), 1,  11,  18 

Phantom  Rickshaw,  The, 
(Kipling),   126 

Phillpotts,  Eden,  94-121, 
326,  327 

Phroso    (Hope),  232 

Pickwick  Papers,  The, 
(Dickens),   34 

Pigs  in  Clover  (Danby), 
255,  376,  379,  383,  384, 
386,  388-398,  404,  405,  414 

Pinero,   Arthur,   52 

Pixy  in  Petticoats,  A,  (Tre- 
vena),  329,  330,  333 

Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills, 
(Kipling),  130,  135,  181 

Polite  .Farces  (Bennett), 
207 

Portreeve,  The,  (Phillpotts), 
110-112 

Prince  Otto  (Stevenson), 
233 

Prisoner  of  Zenda,  The, 
(Hope),  233,  236,  250 

Puck  o'  Pook's  Hill  (Kip- 
ling), 141 

Quatre  Evangiles,  Les, 
(Zola),  124 

Queen's  Quair,  The,  (Hew- 
lett), 56,  59,  66,  71-78,  85, 
92 

QuisanU  (Hope),  239-241, 
250 

Rachel    Lorian    (Dudeney), 

297,  322 
Redcoat  Captain  (Ollivant), 

280,  285-289 
Rescue     of     Plufjles,     The, 

(Kipling),  124 


Rest  Harrow  (Hewlett),  82, 

88,  90-92,  93 
Return,  The,   (Conrad),  20 
Reivards  and  Fairies    (Kip- 
ling), 54,  123 
Richard     Yea  -  and  -  Nay 

(Hewlett),  50,  55,  56,  66- 

71,  72,  92,  291 
River,  The,  (Phillpotts),  94, 

107-109 
Road      in      Tuscany,      The, 

(Hewlett),  58-60 
Roberts,  Morley,  232 
Robin  Brilliant    (Dudeney), 

297  , 
Rod,  Edouard,  259 
Ruskin,  John,  148,  170 

Sapho    (Daudet),  377 

Saracinesca  (Crawford),  368 

Sebastian  (see  Incompleat 
Etonian),  (Danby),  404- 
408 

Secret  Agent,  The,  (Con- 
rad), 29 

Secret  Woman,  The,  (Phill- 
potts), 109-110,  113 

Sense  de  la  Vie,  Le  (Rod), 
269 

Septimus  (Locke),  148,  150, 
167-169,    170,   175 

Serao,  Matilde,  378 

Servant  of  the  Public,  A, 
(Hope),  241-243,   250 

Shakespeare,  A  Life  of, 
(Lee),  20 

Ship  that  Found  Herself, 
The,    (Kipling),    124-125 

Shoulder-Knot,  The,  (Dude- 
ney), 297 

Simon  Dale  (Hope),  233 

Simon  the  Jester  (Locke), 
148,  170-172 

Sinclair,  May,  208,  252-279 

Skram,  Amelia,  378 

Slave,  The,  (Hichens),  343, 
349,  355-357 


INDEX 


463 


Smollett,  Tobias,  120,  293 

Snaith,  John  Collis,  206,  325 

Soldiers  Three  (Kipling), 
123,   130 

Somehow  Good  (De  Mor- 
gan), 41-45 

Sons  of  the  Morning  (Phill- 
potts),  104-107,  115 

Spanish  Jade,  The,  (Hew- 
lett), 87-88 

Sphinx's  Lawyer,  The, 
(Danby),  379,  398-400 

Spindle  and  Plough  (Dude- 
ney),   297,   299,   318-322 

Spirit  in  Prison,  A,  (Hich- 
ens),   367-368 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  290 

Stoker,  Brain,  35 

Stooping  Lady,  The,  (Hew- 
lett), 80,  85-87 

Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  The, 
(Kipling),  141,  144,  234 

Strindberg,    Gustav,   377 

Sudermann,   Hermann,   376 

Superseded  (Sinclair),  254, 
261-262 

Tales  of  Unrest  (Conrad), 
20 

Talisman,  The,  (Scott),  72 

Taming  of  John  Blunt 
(Ollivant),   280 

Teresa  of  Watting  Street, 
(Bennett),   216 

Tertium  Quid,  The,  (Kip- 
ling),  127 

Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles, 
(Hardy),   42 

Thackeray,  William  Make- 
peace, 33,  40,   120 

They    (Kipling),   141 

Thompson  -  Seton,  Ernest, 
282 

Three  Brothers,  The, 
(Phillpotts),   116 

Three    Weeks    (Glyn),  374 

Tolstoy,  Leo,  230,  293 


To-morrow   (Conrad),  24 
Tongues       of       Conscience 

(Hichens),   353 
Traffics       and       Discoveries 

(Kipling),    123,    130 
Trevena,   John,   324-341 
Trionfo      della     Morte,     II, 

(d'Annunzio),  377 
Trois     Mousquetaires,     Les, 

(Dumas),  291 
Trollope,  Anthony,  8,  35 
"Truce  of  the   Bear,  The," 

(Kipling),    123,    129,    133, 

185 
Truth     About     an     Author, 

The,    (Bennett),   207,    208 
Turgenev,  Ivan,  4,  208 
Typhoon    (Conrad),    12,   21, 

24,  29 
Tysons,  The,  (Sinclair),  252, 

255 

Under  the  Deodars  (Kip- 
ling), 126 

Under  Two  Flags 
("Ouida"),  154 

Under  Western  Eyes  (Con- 
rad), 29 

Valdes,     Armando     Palacio, 

230 
Vanity    Fair     (Thackeray), 

13,  34,  188 
Vie,  Une,  (Maupassant),  190 
Vie  de  Boheme,  La,   (Mur- 

ger),  154 
Villa  Rubein   (Galsworthy), 

179 
Vintage,      The,      (Benson), 

233 

Ward,   Mrs.    Humphry,   205 
Ward,      James      and      Wil- 
liam, Life  of,  (Frankau), 
382 
Waugh,  Arthur,  344 


464 


INDEX 


Westminster    Review,     The, 

178 
Where     Love     Is     (Locke), 

155,   156,   157-159 
Whirlwind,       The,       (Phill- 

potts),   94,   112-115 
White    Dove,    A,     (Locke), 

169 
"  White       Man's       Burden, 

The,"  123 
Wireless    (Kipling),   141 


Wise  Woods,  The,  (Dude- 
ney),   323 

Without  Benefit  of  Cler- 
gy (Kipling),  128,  137, 
141 

Woman  (London),  207 

Woman  with  a  Fan,  The, 
(Hichens),  357,  358-362 

Zola,  Emile,  124,  181,  230, 
293,  299,  348,  357,  376 


THE  HOME  BOOK  OF  VERSE 

American  and  English  (1580-1912) 
Compiled  by  Burton  E.  Stevenson.  Collects  the  best  short 
poetry  of  the  English  language — not  only  the  poetry  every- 
body says  is  good,  but  also  the  verses  that  everybody 
reads.  (3742  pages ;  India  paper,  1  vol.,  8vo,  complete  au- 
thor, title  and  first  line  indices,  $7.50  net;  carriage  40  cents 
extra.) 

The  most  comprehensive  and  representative  collection  of 
American  and  English  poetry  ever  published,  including 
3,120  unabridged  poems  from  some  1,100  authors. 

It  brings  together  in  one  volume  the  best  short  poetry 
of  the  English  language  from  the  time  of  Spencer,  with 
especial  attention  to  American  verse. 

The  copyright  deadline  has  been  passed,  and  some  three 
hundred  recent  authors  are  included,  very  few  of  whom 
appear  in  any  other  general  anthology,  such  as  Lionel 
Johnson,  Noyes,  Housman,  Mrs.  Meynell,  Yeats,  Dobson, 
Lang,  Watson,  Wilde,  Francis  Thompson,  Gilder,  Le 
Gallienne,  Van  Dyke,  Woodberry,  Riley,  etc.,  etc. 

The  poems  as  arranged  by  subject,  and  the  classifica- 
tion is  unusually  close  and  searching.  Some  of  the  most 
comprehensive  sections  are:  Children's  rhymes  (300 
pages);  love  poems  (800  pages);  nature  poetry  (400 
pages);  humorous  verse  (500  pages);  patriotic  and  histor- 
ical poems  (600  pages) ;  reflective  and  descriptive  poetry 
(400  pages).  No  other  collection  contains  so  many  popu- 
lar favorites  and  fugitive  verses. 

DELIGHTFUL  POCKET  ANTHOLOGIES 

The   following   books   are   uniform,  with    full    gilt   flexible   covers   and 
pictured  cover  linings.      i6mo.     Each,  cloth,  $1.50;  leather,  $2.50. 

THE  OPEN  ROAD 


THE  GARLAND  OF  CHILDHOOD 

A  little  book  for  all  lovers  of 
children.  Compiled  by  Percy 
Withers. 

THE  VISTA  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE 

Compiled  by  Henry  S.  Pan- 
coast.  From.  Spencer  to  Kip- 
ling. 

LETTERS  THAT  LIVE 

Compiled  by  Laura  E.   Lock- 


wood  and  Amy  R. 
150  letters. 


Kelly.     Some 


POEMS  FOR  TRAVELLERS 

(About    "The    Continent.") 
Compiled  by  Miss  Mary  R.  J. 
DuBois. 


A  little  book  for  wayfarers. 
Compiled  by  E.  V.  Lucas. 

THE  FRIENDLY  TOWN 

A  little  book  for  the  urbane, 
compiled   by  E.   V.   Lucas. 

THE  POETIC  OLD-WORLD 

Compiled  by  Miss  L.  H. 
Humphrey.  Covers  Europe,  in- 
cluding Spain,  Belgium  and  the 
British  Isles. 

THE  POETIC  NEW-WORLD 

Compiled  by  Miss  Humphrey. 


HENRY     HOLT     AND 

34  WEST  33rd  STREET 


COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


NOTABLE    MUSICAL    NOVELS 

W.  J.  Henderson's  THE  SOUL  OF  A  TENOR 

A  romance  by  the  author  of  "The  Story  of  Music,"  "The  Art 
of  the  Singer,"  "Some  Forerunners  of  Italian  Opera." 
With  frontispiece  in  color  by  George  Gibbs.  $1.35  net. 
A  very  human  romance  of  "Opera  Land,"  by  one  of  the 
greatest  authorities  on  that  land.  While  the  author  places  a 
large  part  of  his  story  in  the  Metropolitan  Opera  I.ouse  of 
New  York,  with  rare  self-denial  he  has  refrained  from  putting 
in  characters  even  suggested  by  any  of  the  many  famous 
singers  that  have  appeared  there — with  the  single  exception 
of  Lilli  Lehmann,  who  appears  but  briefly  and  is  treated  with 
reverence.  This  romance  deals  \yith  a  great  American  tenor 
born  in  Pittsburg,  who,  thru  a  tense  emotional  experience, 
finds  his  soul.  Other  leading  characters  are  a  soprano  in  the 
same  company,  and  his  wife — who  is  not  a  musician  and 
who  is  made  the  more  beautiful  and  compelling  of  the  two 
women,  despite  the  unusual  charm  of  the  soprano.  # 

There  are  many  clever  comments  on  things  musical.  The 
author  shows  life  behind  the  scenes,  but  he  never  "preaches." 

Remain   Rolland's  JEAN-CHRISTOPHE 

(Dawn — Morning — Youth — Revolt.)     Translated  by  Gil- 
bert Cannan.     The  romance  of  a  musician.    $1.50  net 

"The  most  momentous  novel  that  has  come  to  us  from  France,  or 
from  any  other  European  country,  in  a  decade.  .  .  .  Highly  commend- 
able and  effective  translation  ...  the  story  moves  at  a  rapid  pace.  It 
never  lags." — Boston  Transcript. 

•'A  book  as  big,  as  elemental,  as  original  as  though  the  art  of  fiction 
began  to-day." — Springfield  Republican. 

Romain  Rolland's  JEAN-CHRISTOPHE  IN  PARIS 

(The  Market  Place— Antoinette— The  House.)  $1.50  net. 

"A  masterpiece  of  a  new  day.  .  .  .  Rolland's  great  novel  .  .  .  the 
high  estimate  then  put  upon  it  remains  unaltered  by  a  reading  of  the 
second  volume  in  English  .  .  .  extraordinary  quality  .  .  .  the  most 
profound  and  comprehensive  criticism  of  modern  life  ...  a  work  too 
big  to  be  measured  save  by  an  imaginative  perspective  view  .  .  .by 
no  means  a  book  for  the  few  alone;  many  readers  will  find  it  stimulat- 
ing and  suggestive." — Springfield  Republican. 

Romain  Rolland's  JEAN-CHRISTOPHE'S  EVENTIDE 

Including  The  Friends— The  Burning  Bush— Evening  and 
concluding  the  series,  may  be  expected  about  January  1st, 
19 1 3- 


HENRY     HOLT    AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW    Y0RK 


TV-,, 


UC .SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  601  341 


